Chapter 9
Nine
Cisco
Ishould have eaten the cake.
Indigestion would have been easier to deal with than the thoughts whirling in my head. Now I can’t sleep, so I tuck my arm and roll to face the church oratory’s red velvet couch’s backrest.
Formerly the priest’s office, this room is now the sacristy because the Sin Bin has taken over the original space.
The desk is cluttered and blocked by a chair holding my last clean set of clericals.
The wooden vestment press overflows. The lavabo’s leaky faucet drips constantly.
The couch is too short. My feet hang off the end.
The last time I slept solidly for more than an hour was over a week ago. Maybe I got to three hours, if I count the blackout where I dreamed the world was cinder and every throat was screaming, mine included.
The Vatican, Cardinal Valerio, and the entire invisible machine that once made sense no longer align with what I see when I close my eyes and think about the Magdalene prophecy.
It’s real. I know that. Two divine relics and the defeat of two Horsemen of the Apocalypse prove that.
My rejection this morning had nothing to do with its validity or the woman I rejected with it.
Her face. Her smell … it’s something sweet and heady I can’t name.
Something with wood and floral notes. Maybe Iris?
The scent reminds me of a time Uncle Nico took me fishing off the coast of Naples.
I must have been only five or six, because I recall being exuberant over leaving my new, annoying baby sister behind.
For a whole week, it was just us “men,” an old cedar boat, and the smell of salt, sun-warmed rope, and the powdery pomade Nico rubbed into his hair before dawn.
I never knew what was in it. Only that it smelled like a morning where no one was screaming, and the water was still kind.
Grumbling at myself, I roll again and face the dark room, but there is no comfort.
The soft velvet grinds my clericals against my skin.
I should change into my sweats, but they’re dirty.
By the time I closed the church after confession tonight, it was already late, and I was tired.
The thought of taking the short walk back to the abbey for a clean set of clothes was like a needle in the center of my chest. The thought of bumping into Mercy was even worse.
She didn’t come.
I waited for hours, and she didn’t come.
Wind gusts against the tall lancet window. A storm brews outside. Now and then, the clouds break, and a moonbeam rushes in, casting light on the heavy desk. My prayer book lies open and unread.
I shut my eyes and try to pray. Not the official prayers I’ve said a million times at Mass, but the one I never say aloud. The one that starts with a name and ends with a question: Dio, cosa vuoi da me? God, what do you want from me?
There is no answer. There never is.
The only reason I know He has not forsaken me is that I have been ordained to ministry. And if God let me become a priest, knowing what I am, then He must believe I can be redeemed—or at least controlled. He’s not finished with me yet.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out, grateful for a distraction until I see another message from my “friend” at the Vatican: Update?
I stare at it until my eyes go blurry. I have no answer because nothing has changed.
The Horseman of Famine is not here, despite the signs of rot in the garden.
We might be a little hungrier than usual, but the straits are not dire yet.
The abbey is secure. The only anomaly is that the leader of the Sinners is not evil.
She is … what? Broken? Starving? A reflection of myself?
I flinch at that thought, sit up, and rub the grit from my eyes.
The room smells of incense and the bitter tang of beeswax that Sister Agnes uses to polish every wooden surface in the church until they gleam.
I used to love that smell. Now it reminds me of funerals and a closed casket that no one was allowed to open.
It reminds me of my sister, who used to call me Cesco because she couldn’t say Francesco. My sister, whom I failed.
The memory of her makes my chest hurt. This pain is why I never corrected the mistake when they signed me up for the seminary as Francisco instead of Francesco.
In the Angelotti family, it’s the women’s role to balance out the men’s sins.
We call it bella figura—the beautiful face you present to the world, even when your soul is a mess.
My mother believed it, the aunts upheld it, and Maria was the best at it.
The little angel, the perfect daughter, the counterbalance to my own growing rage.
She died because of it, because she was expected to suffer in her perfection while the violent men reaped the rewards.
She was twelve, and her funeral fixed everything I had broken.
I tug my white collar from my throat, and my fingers linger along the stiff line of cotton.
Mercy tried to remove it.
She thinks we are destined for each other, that she will come between me and my promise to God.
What, like it’s hard?
My upper lip curls. So soon after I confessed that I wished for her trust, she acted so … undeserving of it. I must remember that she is a vehicle for sin. This is what she is trained for. It is in her very name. Mercy is manipulative and cunning—a wolf in lamb’s clothing.
She does not want absolution. I should focus my attention on those who do.
Lying back, I shove my hand into my trouser pocket, grip Maria’s old rosary, and thumb roughly through the beads. My anger makes me fumble, but eventually I find the beginning.
“Hail Mary, full of grace,” I murmur, “the Lord is with thee—”
Let me do the lying for us.
I shove Mercy’s husky voice from my mind and continue, “Blessed art thou—”
I’m already going to hell.
“—among women—”
What’s one more sin on my tally?
“—and blessed is the fruit of thy womb—”
It’s no big deal.
“—Jesus.”
I’m used to being seen as dirty.
“I cannot pray with you talking in my head!” I bark and rip the collar loose, tossing it at the desk.
My bare feet hit the cold stone floor, and in two strides, I reach the vestment press. I yank off my chafing clerical shirt and trousers with jerky movements. The right leg won’t free my foot, so I kick it, flinging it across the room.
Standing there in my boxers, lungs heaving, I still feel hot.
Drips from lavabo’s leaky faucet echo like a buzzing fly, grating on my nerves. The ritual sink is meant for washing my hands before Mass, but the bathroom door is two more steps away and too far. I splash my face with water from the lavabo.
Still hot.
Vaffanculo.
Yesterday’s sweatpants will have to do. I yank them on, then dig through the vestment press, filled with robes, stoles, and chasubles, until I find the whiskey bottle that I stole from the kitchen.
It’s flask-sized and fits snugly in my back rear pocket.
I don’t bother with shoes and stalk out of the room, only to stop.
Directly ahead, the Sin Bin mocks me with its wide-open door, the confessional booth in the dark beyond.
She didn’t come.
I waited, and still she didn’t come.
And me, what did I do? I took it like a saint. I told myself she didn’t deserve my compassion. Said she’s not worth my time.
One of the first lessons I learned in the seminary was that I don’t decide who deserves forgiveness. I must listen, offer grace, and leave the judging to God.
I should know this better than anyone.
I move to the front of the church and cross the chancel. Ignoring the altar, I find the small, boarded-up door hidden behind a tapestry. With a violent grunt, I force it open and almost fall forward when it gives way.
The stairs inside are a stone corkscrew. They’re tight and claustrophobic, but not for long. As I climb, the air changes. The deafening silence of the church gives way to a low moan escaping the trapdoor. I shove that open and haul myself into the chamber.
And the world roars.
The wind is a physical blow. It screams through the stone louvers and pelts my chest with stinging fists of rain. The icy temperature stretches my lips into a smile. Perfetto.
This tower isn’t a true belfry. The bell ordered centuries ago never arrived. It’s not a sacristy either, despite the remnants left from the last priest they had, the one before McBride. It is a stone cage open to the sky.
I close my eyes and breathe.
This … this I understand.
My prison cell didn’t pretend. It was concrete and steel.
It was honest. In there, I was a number.
A sin. The cold was a fact I learned to embrace.
My cell at the seminary was much the same.
A hard cot, a stone floor, and one window.
It was supposed to be a tool designed to strip me, to flay the comfort from my skin so I had nothing left but God.
But the prison cell had been worse. My room at the abbey is a torture chamber, with thin walls and an unamenable woody, floral scent. Even the oratory is a lie.
But here … here, I can breathe.
That’s all I do for a long, drawn-out moment. I stand there in the dark, hands hanging loosely at my sides, with the wind and rain my only companions.
No one comes here at all, I think. Not since the priest who lived up here went mad and ended his life.
The story the nuns tell during confession is that he hung himself on the very trees the Sinners use for their training—the ones with nooses for strengthening their necks.
He made his penance a public spectacle, or perhaps a warning.
I don’t fish for these sorts of tales, but the nuns seem to enjoy telling them to me.
At first, I thought they just liked gossiping.
Then, I thought, they’re simply happy to break from their vow of silence and use their voices.
Finally, I realized rather uncomfortably that they wanted me to know things.
Being the confessor for a group of sanctioned sinners is a challenging task.
They see I have not abandoned these women who risk their lives to make a better world.
They think I am here to protect them. And they approve of me.
They shouldn’t.