Chapter One
Alexandra
“For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?”
- Bell Hooks
Dublin, Ireland...
I quietly spritzed disinfectant infused with an oil polish onto the wooden pews and wiped the chairs down until they gleamed. The cushioned tuffets used for genuflecting were also meticulously dusted. I took pride in my work and considered it an honor that the Mother Mary Catalina had gifted me such a task.
I was younger than most of the women in the nunnery. Not that I really knew how old I was, no one did, but I’d been here at the church three years now. Nor was I likely to become a nun. Father Jessup told me that becoming a nun was not my destiny, and I believed him. Instead, I studied for a life outside the church.
I smiled secretly as I thought of the whispered words of encouragement I had uttered in Sister Margaret’s mind this morning. Of all the chores around the church, this and gardening were my favorite.
Ordinarily I would have completed my task by now, but I got a late start because I was enjoying harvesting the tomatoes and cucumbers the gardeners had planted in the vast gardens of the church. If it wasn’t for that slight quirk of fate, I wouldn’t have been anywhere near this part of the church, at least not at this time of day.
It was the time and place where people shared their deepest, darkest secrets. It was where they admitted to committing some of the most atrocious deeds or having some of the most atrocious deeds done to them.
When the first words became clear to me, I should have done the honorable thing and moved away. My hearing, along with some of my other senses, had always been extraordinary, but I usually tried to respect people’s privacy and deliberately not listen to private conversations.
“Father, forgive me for I have sinned,” the man said in a clear emotionless voice. “It has been one week since my last confession.”
I twisted my lips in annoyance because the man didn’t sound contrite or sorry in the least.
“These are my sins: I killed four people this week. Two were innocents and the other two knew what they were signing up for,” the man continued with a bit of belligerence. “I did my usual fornicating, cussing, and lying. For these and anything I missed, I am sorry.” The man’s voice dripped with irreverence, not at all as contrite as he should be.
I didn’t need to hear Father Jessup’s quiet Latin words of forgiveness to know that, yet again, this man would be forgiven. Yeah, forgiven, given some useless penance, and given the free will to commit the same sins again in the coming week, I thought.
Even though I accepted that was not what the church intended, it was often the result. Free will was supposed to be God’s gift to humans. This was one of those times that I couldn’t stand by and let this man hurt someone again.
I was so outraged by such blatant abuse of God’s gift that I didn’t even think about breaching his mind. I just did it. Usually, I only used my gift of persuading others to do what I wanted when I was intent on pleasing Father Jessup, Mother Mary Catalina, or my teachers. As an adult who was lacking in so many social skills, crippled with secrets that made my living in the real world impossible, and greatly dependent on the church’s charity, my world was kept harmonious when those around me were pleased. At least I think that I’m an adult, I looked as if I was nineteen or twenty now, but when I first came here, I looked at least sixteen. Without access to my memory, I could only guess my age based on appearance. My knowledge was lacking in so many ways that it was hardly a measure.
I used my ability to read minds to give the people around me the responses and actions from me that they wanted. I acted according to their wants where I could. Otherwise, I effortlessly compelled them to change and want what I thought they should want. A little narcissistic? Yeah, I knew that. However, I made myself feel better by knowing that my wants were never selfish. Getting others to do my will was usually a reflex action and not done with any malicious intent to manipulate them. It had simply been an instinct to survive.
Things like compelling Sister Margaret to be more lenient with my time in the garden, or getting cook to give me an extra dessert, or even getting a sneak peek at an upcoming exam in my teachers’ minds, never mind that I could memorize my textbooks verbatim. Yes, I knew that some of it was wrong, but I never hurt anyone.
People’s pain and suffering I could sense and feel when reading their minds, but I learned very early to avoid such dark emotions. Otherwise, I could easily drown in their pain or their destructive feelings. And infusing myself with so much negativity usually drained me that much quicker, and then I had to refuel myself.
And refueling required stealth because if anyone found out, my world as I knew it would implode and I couldn’t remain here. I couldn’t remember what I was before coming here, and given my diet, I was afraid to find out. So, I tried to refuel as infrequently as possible. I was determined not to get completely empty; some instinct told me that it would be very bad if that should happen.
I entered the confessor’s mind without remorse. I gasped as tears filled my eyes and my limbs trembled at the onslaught of the horrors that filled my mind. This man had not just killed his victims; he had tortured them and enjoyed doing it. Those innocents that he mentioned were teenage girls, whose only crime had been to escape their captors. He was a slaver, trading in young girls and boys. The teenage girls that he killed had escaped their slavers, and this man killed them for it.
I shuddered as some transient memory teased me, but I couldn’t quite grasp it. Given my memory loss, I tried surfing the minds of everyone here. So far, Father Jessup only knew that His Excellency wanted me here, and therefore, I would remain until His Excellency said otherwise. They knew nothing else about me. I was told that I was brought to the church three years ago by someone for my own safety. Nothing else. I had been hiding among the sisters, even wearing the uniform of the novices to fit in. It was beyond frustrating.
However, it was fortunate that I knew enough to guard the secrets that I had accidentally uncovered, including how to sustain my very unusual diet. Pure instinct guided me. I don’t remember how I knew what to do, but I instinctively knew how to sustain myself.
Most of the confessor’s victims were people like me. A person of color. The confessor didn’t consider them human beings with basic rights. They were mere commodities to be traded to the highest bidder. This wasn’t even his only crime. He also sold illegal guns and drugs for his employer.
Everything about this man offended me. I wanted him to suffer for his crimes. Sure, God was in the forgiveness business, and as a ward of the Church, I should let Father Jessup’s absolution stand. I was appalled that someone could do something so heinous, so egregious, and yet they were forgiven so easily. That pissed me off, and I couldn’t let that stand.
I waited outside the church, in the shadows behind the shrubs at the entrance: “Confess your sins to the police. Obey me,” I whispered into his mind. I didn’t have to speak out loud. I spoke telepathically.
The man immediately stopped in his tracks and looked around as though he had been injected by a needle and not a suggestion.
I almost laughed at his comical expression.
“Is that you, Lord?” he asked fearfully.
I didn’t dare blaspheme and claim such a thing. So, I ignored his question and let him draw his own conclusion. “Confess your every deed,” I continued, “the trafficking of humans, drugs, and guns, and also the murder, rape, and theft,” I wove into his mind.
“But I thought I was forgiven.” He was pleading now.
“A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction.” I quoted a verse from the book of Galatians in an ominous voice. Yup, I could be dramatic when I needed to be. LOL! “You may be forgiven, but you must pay for your sins.”
I didn’t worry about whether he would follow my directive. My ability was powerful and absolute and seemed to get even more so as I used it. Once I compelled him, he would find it impossible to ignore the compulsion. No one had ever been able to resist or override my directive.
I quietly returned to the church to finish my cleaning task of the church’s interior.
I wasn’t surprised the next day when I heard the nuns fiercely whispering about a major criminal who had turned himself in to the police. Apparently, the confessor had driven directly to the police station and not only confessed all but he had also revealed the location of the bodies of his victims, the location of persons enslaved, and the hidden containers of illegal guns and drugs.
I did a fist pump in secret.
Accessing Father Jessup’s mind, I noted that he was shocked at the parishioner’s sudden confession to the police, as he had been coming into the confessional for more than five years. Part of him was relieved that the parishioner had confessed and owned up to his sins and there would be no more victims. However, another part of him was suspicious of the suddenness of the confession. He hoped that the parishioner’s bosses didn’t think he had encouraged the confession to the police. They were not people he wanted to anger in any way.
I told no one of what I had done. Emboldened and filled with righteous conviction, I started scanning the minds of the dangerous-looking men coming into the church. I listened to their confessions even if I was out in the garden instead of in the church.
Yeah, I could do that too.
I filtered out the voices I didn’t want to hear and listened to whom and what I wanted to. And each time I compelled the confessor to confess their crimes.
They complied.
I ruthlessly practiced the concept of “tell the truth and shame the devil” with no regard to the Church’s teachings. Convinced that my intent was just and righteous, I used my gift liberally over the next year.
I hit the motherload when I bent the mind of the Irish mob’s head enforcer. Unfortunately, all hell broke loose. Leaders of the mob wanted answers, and no one was safe, especially Father Jessup.
Determined to protect Father Jessup, I continued to bend every mobster’s mind who came into the church for answers, which resulted in even more confessions to law enforcement. What my sheltered mind didn’t quite grasp was that the mob basically owned the local police and the judges. I was literally sentencing each mobster to death as soon as they confessed. Not that I would have changed my activities even if I’d known that consequence.
I was strangely bloodthirsty and wished that I could dish out my own brand of punishment for such depraved violence. Instant death.
It took a few words from Father Jessup to give me a clue of the deadly game I was playing. A game for which I had no concept of the broader implications.
“Is there something you wish to tell me, my child?” Father Jessup said to me one afternoon.
“Pardon?” I was startled and lifted my head bent over my homework to the sight of Father Jessup standing in the open doorway of my bedroom.
It was beyond stunning that Father Jessup was in the sleeping quarters of the nuns and more stunning that he’d come here this late in the evening. Never mind that I wasn’t a candidate for the nunnery; our bedtime had passed almost thirty minutes before. By all rights, my lights should have been out. It was unheard of that Father Jessup or even Sister Margaret would be visiting any of us.
I probed Father Jessup’s mind, wanting to know what had him looking so troubled and what had caused this astonishing behavior. The mob boss had just paid him a visit. The bruising on his left cheek and the cuts on his lips and above his right eye were testament to the images still in his mind.
“I saw you near some of the men. Something happened to those men when you spoke to them.” His voice hesitant and apologetic at the same time, Father Jessup came farther into my room and closed the door. That act, which was strictly forbidden, had me gasping in shock.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Father.”
“What did you say to them?” he persisted. “How did you convince them to break their oath?” Father Jessup persisted, his voice getting softer and more urgent.
A read of his mind told me that Father Jessup had no conviction about what he was asking. He was suspicious but had no real proof.
How could he? I had never actually spoken to anyone.
Apparently, Father Jessup noticed that, other than himself, I had been the only constant in the general area around some of the men. With the mob killing so many in their quest to find out why their men had suddenly become so talkative, for the first time, I felt a bit uneasy. I had inadvertently put so many in danger. The mob would think nothing about killing priests and nuns alike in their efforts to find answers. They beat up Father Jessup this time, but Father Jessup was terrified of what they could do to the nuns or what they would do next time in a search for answers.
“I didn’t speak to anyone,” I told him.
Father Jessup looked disappointed. He thought, and had hoped, that he had found the answer to the mystery.
“Father Jessup, help me understand something.” I squinted up at him.
Father Jessup still seemed to be puzzling over the mystery of his confessors. So, he answered distractedly. “Understand what, my child?”
“Well, some people are saying that some criminals confessed to you and then confessed to the police, right?” I asked slowly, not sure how much I wanted to say of what I knew.
“You know that I can’t answer that,” Father Jessup said softly.
“Okay, fair enough. But if it was true, doesn’t the Bible teach us that if you commit a crime that you should be punished?”
Father Jessup still seemed distracted, but he answered anyway. “According to the book of Romans, God says, ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.’ You know this,” he dismissed.
“Yes, Father. That was in Chapter 12. However, also in Romans, in the very next chapter, God says, ‘…But if thou do thatwhich is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is a minister of God, an avenger for wrath to him that doeth evil.’ Further, Galatians also teaches us that ‘A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction.’ So, why should they not pay for their crimes? God says that they should.”
“That is all true, but Jesus has promised that ‘If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness,’ John 1:9.” Father Jessup looked as though he was going to get into a long-winded lesson on forgiveness, but I didn’t want to hear it.
So, I jumped in quickly to redirect his focus. “I understand that people confess their sins to you. They are usually remorseful and contrite, and you absolve them of their sins. But if they intend doing it again, harm others, kill even, why absolve them? Why would you not tell the authorities of their intentions?”
Father Jessup stilled. In his mind, he was thinking that my question was offensive and ignorant. “The confessor is bound by the seal of confession under the gravest sin and under threat of the severest punishments, both temporal and eternal,” he recited as though it was a sentence stamped into his brain. “I cannot break it. The sacramental seal is sacred,” Father Jessup said gravely.
“I get that you can be excommunicated for revealing a confession, but don’t you see, Father? You are not breaking anyone’s confidence. These murderers confess their sins, and it is clear that they will do it again. Isn’t the protection of life even more sacred? Protection of the life they intend to snuff out?”
“I am not convinced that those men would have killed again or willingly confessed their past sins to the police. And of course, I consider life sacred. But free will is even more sacred. God gave us free will, and no one should take the will of others,” Father Jessup said emphatically. “Not only am I allowing the confessor their free will to repent but I am also allowing free will to sin or sin no more. That is sacred.”
“I see.” I really didn’t, but I could tell that he believed what he was saying so wholeheartedly that nothing I could say would change his perspective, other than my using my gift to do it. However, there was something else that niggled at me. “And if someone heard a confession and convinced the confessor to turn themselves in? What then? What happens to that person?”
Father Jessup sucked in his breath. I knew it! Father Jessup thought feverishly. “Anyone who reveals what they heard in confessional other than the confessor would be excommunicated from the church.” He was fighting to contain his agitation.
“But what if they didn’t reveal anything?” I persisted. “What if they just somehow compelled the confessor to confess again, only this time to the authorities?”
Father Jessup narrowed his eyes and growled, “I can’t knowingly allow you to eavesdrop and contaminate the confessional by speaking to confessors about what you heard.”
“Whoa! I never said anything about me speaking to anyone.” I regarded him calmly when calm was in no way what I was feeling. I didn’t know why I’d thought I could get through to him without altering his mind. After all, Father Jessup had listened to those murderers again and again and kept giving them absolution. It was clear that their view of what was sacred and mine had hit an insurmountable mountain. He wasn’t even going to try to climb it, nor was I.
“I didn’t speak to them because I don’t have to,” I said softly. I stopped, knowing that if I told him that I could not only read minds but could also alter them that he would probably freak out. Already, he was thinking that he had to kick me out of the church. I couldn’t let that happen because the church was all I had. It was the only home I’d had for the past three years. The only place I felt secure or remembered. No way could I lose my home now.
“What do you mean?” Father Jessup’s shock seemed to permeate his entire body. He stood rigidly, his eyes wide. His hands gripped his robe, and he pressed his lips together as if afraid of saying something wrong. And then he slumped back against the closed door as though his legs could no longer support his weight. “How can you convince them to confess if you don’t speak to them?” He was using that stern voice now, that voice that everyone knew to be apprehensive of.
“I was told that I could find you here,” a disembodied voice said beside us.
Where the hell did he come from?I hadn’t even sensed him.