All the Colors of the Dark — Chapter 180

180

Saint took in the steeple rising from a turret dark like iron, and beneath that loggia through arches capped with fine mosaics.

Through the main door and into a vaulted nave so stunning for a moment Saint could do little but wish her grandmother could see it.

She thought of Grace.

Of why exactly she had led her to this church, in this town.

Saint wondered if there had been another girl buried here. She had searched the archives four decades back but could not find anything close enough.

Through a maze of rooms and across a rear courtyard, she moved into a smaller building where books rose from hardwood cases stained black. A woman sat behind a cash register that Saint guessed did not see much

action.

Her name badge read Sister Isabelle.

Outside Saint circled to the building behind, the children’s home, the concrete beside colored with chalk lines and numbers and smiling faces.

She saw a perfect feather and held it up to the light. The gray of a mourning dove. Norma had once told her it represented protection and love and guardian angels. She placed it into her pocket.

For two hours Saint tried to decipher a code that was not there. She stopped locals and asked about the history, strolled the graveyard and checked each of the stones.

She showed file photos of Eli Aaron to the nun at the register, and then to the old men gathered at the church door.

At the pulpit she traced Latin, ran her fingers over the carvings on each of the benches.

“What are you trying to tell me, Grace?” she whispered before the chancel.

Saint stepped to one side as the sisters passed.

Though she kept her head bowed slightly, she noticed the way they walked, the reverent way they carried themselves.

She looked at their sandals.

Noted their veils and tunics, their medals and coifs.

And then.

The rosary beads they carried.

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