“Yes,” Evangeline replied, expecting the impatient and stern Philomena to return any moment.
Philomena clucked her tongue and said, “I knew that it was inevitable you would learn the truth of your origins someday. I was not sure how, mind you, but I had a vivid sense that the past would be impossible to bury completely, even in such a closed community as ours. In my humble opinion,” Philomena continued, finishing off her cookie and taking another, “it has been quite a burden for Celestine to remain silent. It has been a burden for all of us to remain so passive in the face of the threat that surrounds us.”
“You knew of Celestine’s involvement in this . . .” Evangeline fumbled, trying to formulate the correct words to describe angelology. She had the unwelcome thought that perhaps she was the only Franciscan Sister of Adoration who had been kept ignorant. “This... discipline?”
“Oh, my, yes,” Philomena said. “All of the older sisters know. The sisters of my generation were steeped in angelic study—Genesis 28:I2-I7, Ezekiel 1:1—14, Luke I:26—38. Bless me, it was angels morning, noon, and night!”
Philomena adjusted her weight on her chair, making the wood groan, and continued, “One day I was deep into the core curriculum prescribed by European angelologists—our longtime mentors—and the next our convent was nearly destroyed. All of our scholarship, all of our efforts toward ridding the world of the pestilence of the Nephilim, seemed to be to have been for naught. Suddenly we were simple nuns whose lives were devoted to prayer and prayer alone. Believe me, I have fought hard to bring us back to the fight, to declare ourselves combatants. Those in our number who believe that it’s too dangerous are fools and cowards.”
“Dangerous?” Evangeline said.
“The fire of ’44 was not an accident,” Philomena said, narrowing her eyes. “It was a direct attack. It could be said that we were careless, that we underestimated the bloodthirsty nature of the Nephilim here in America. They were aware of many—if not all—of the enclaves of angelologists in Europe. We made the mistake of thinking that America was still as safe as it had once been. I’m sorry to say that Sister Celestine’s presence exposed St. Rose Convent to great danger. After Celestine came, so did the attacks. Not just on our convent, mind you. There were nearly one hundred attacks on American convents that year—a concerted effort by the Nephilim to discover which of us had what they wanted.”
“But why?”
“Because of Celestine, of course,” Philomena said. “She was well known by the enemy. When she arrived, I myself saw how sickly, how battered, how scarred she was. Clearly she had gone through a harrowing escape. And, perhaps most significant, she carried a parcel for Mother Innocenta, something meant to be secured here, with us. Celestine had something that they wanted. They knew she had taken refuge in the United States, only they did not know where.”
“And Mother Innocenta knew everything of this?” Evangeline asked.
“Of course,” Philomena said, raising her eyebrows in wonder, whether at Mother Innocenta or the question, Evangeline was not sure. “Mother Innocenta was the premier scholar of her era in America. She had been trained by Mother Antonia, who was the student of Mother Clara, our most beloved abbess, who had, in turn, been instructed by Mother Francesca herself, who—to the benefit of our great nation—came to Milton, New York, directly from the European Angelological Society to build the American branch. St. Rose Convent was the beating heart of the American Angelological Project, a grand undertaking, far more ambitious than whatever Celestine Clochette had been doing in Europe before she tagged along on the Second Expedition.” Philomena, who had been speaking very rapidly, paused to take a deep breath. “Indeed,” she said, slowly, “Mother Innocenta would never,
never
have given up the fight so easily had she not been murdered at the hands of the Nephilim.”
Evangeline said, “I thought she died in the fire.”
“That is what we told the outer world, but it is not the truth.” Philomena’s skin flushed red and then blanched to a very pale color, as if the act of discussing the fire brought her skin in contact with a phantom heat.
“I happened to be in the balcony of Maria Angelorum when the fire broke out. I was cleaning the pipes of the Casavant organ, a terribly difficult chore. With fourteen hundred and twenty-two pipes, twenty stops, and thirty ranks, it was hard enough to dust the organ, but Mother Innocenta had assigned me the twice-yearly task of polishing the brass! Imagine it! I believe that Mother Innocenta was punishing me for something, although it completely slips my mind what I could have done to displease her.”
Evangeline knew full well that Philomena could work herself into a state of inconsolable grievance about the events of the fire. Instead of interrupting her, as she wished, she folded her hands in her lap and endeavored to listen as penance for missing adoration that morning. “I am certain you did nothing to displease anyone,” Evangeline said.
“I heard an unusual commotion,” Philomena continued, as she would have with or without Evangeline’s encouragement, “and went to the great rose window at the back of the choir loft. If you have cleaned the organ, or participated in our choir, you will know that the rose window looks over the central courtyard. That morning the courtyard was filled with hundreds of sisters. Soon enough I noticed the smoke and flames that had consumed the fourth floor, although, sequestered as I was in the church balcony, with a clear view of the upper regions, I had no idea of what was happening on the other floors of the convent. I later learned, however, that the damage was extensive. We lost everything.”
“How awful,” Evangeline said, repressing the urge to ask how this could be construed as a Nephilistic attack.
“Terrible indeed,” Philomena said. “But I have not told you everything. I have been silenced by Mother Perpetua on the subject, but I will remain silent no longer. Sister Innocenta, I tell you, was murdered.
Murdered.”
“What do you mean?” Evangeline asked, trying to understand the seriousness of Philomena’s accusation. Only hours before, she had learned that her mother had been murdered at the hands of these creatures, and now Innocenta. Suddenly, St. Rose felt like the most dangerous place her father could have placed her.
“From the choir loft, I heard a wooden door slam closed. In a matter of seconds, Mother Innocenta appeared below. I watched her hurry through the central aisle of the church, a group of sisters—two novices and two fully professed—following close behind her. They seemed to be on their way to the Adoration Chapel, perhaps to pray. That was Innocenta’s way: Prayer was not simply a devotion or a ritual but a solution to all that is imperfect in the world. She believed so strongly in the power of prayer that I quite expect she believed she could stop the fire with it.”
Philomena sighed, took her glasses and rubbed them with a crisp white handkerchief. Sliding her clean glasses onto her nose, she looked at Evangeline sharply, as if gauging her suitability for the tale, and continued.
“Suddenly two enormous figures stepped from the side aisles. They were extraordinarily tall and bony, with white hands and faces that seemed lit by fire. Their hair and skin appeared, even from a distance, to glow with a soft white radiance. They had large blue eyes, high cheekbones, and full pink lips. Their hair fell in curls around their faces. Yet their shoulders were broad, and they wore trousers and rain jackets—the attire of gentlemen—as if they were no different from a banker or a lawyer. While these secular clothes dispelled the thought that they might be Holy Cross brothers, who at that time wore full brown robes and tonsured heads, I could not make out who or what the creatures were.
“I now know that these creatures are called Gibborim, the warrior class of Nephilim. They are brutal, bloodthirsty, unfeeling beings whose ancestry—on the angelic side, that is—goes back to the great warrior Michael. It is too noble a lineage for such horrid creatures and explains their strange beauty. Looking back, with full knowledge of what they were, I understand that their beauty was a terrible manifestation of evil, a cold and diabolic allure that could lead one all the more easily to harm. They were physically perfect, but it was a perfection severed from God—an empty, soulless beauty. I imagine that Eve found a similar beauty in the serpent. Their presence in the church caused the most unnatural state to fall over me. I must confess: I was caught completely off guard by them.”
Once again Philomena took her crisp white cotton handkerchief from her pocket, unfolded it in her hands, and pressed it to her forehead, wiping the sweat away.
“From the choir loft, I could see everything very clearly. The creatures stepped from the shadows into the brilliant light of the nave. The stained-glass windows were sparkling with sunlight, as they usually are at midday, and patches of color scattered across the marble floor, creating a diaphanous glow on their pale skin as they walked. Mother Innocenta took a sharp breath upon seeing them. She reached for the shoulder of a pew to support her weight and asked them what they wanted. Something in the tone of her voice convinced me that she recognized them. Perhaps she had even expected them.”
“She could not have possibly expected them,” Evangeline said, baffled by Philomena’s description of this horrible catastrophe as if it were a providential event. “She would have warned the others.”
“I cannot know,” Philomena said, wiping her forehead once again and crumpling the soiled cotton square in her hand. “Before I knew what happened, the creatures attacked my dear sisters. The evil beings turned their eyes upon them, and it seemed to me that a spell had been cast. The six women gaped at the creatures as if hypnotized. One creature placed his hands upon Mother Innocenta, and it was as though an electric charge entered her body. She convulsed and that very instant fell to the floor, the very spirit sucked from her. The beast found pleasure in the act of killing, as any monster might. The kill appeared to make it stronger, more vibrant, while Mother Innocenta’s body was utterly unrecognizable.”
“But how is that possible?” Evangeline asked, wondering if her mother had met the same wretched fate.
“I do not know. I covered my eyes in terror,” Philomena replied. “When at last I peered over the balustrade again, I saw them upon the floor of the church, all six sisters, dead. In the time it took me to run from the loft to the church, a matter of fifteen seconds or so, the creatures had fled, leaving the bodies of our sisters utterly defiled. They had been desiccated to the bone, as if drained not only of vital fluids but of their very essence. Their bodies were shriveled, their hair burned, their skin pruned. This, my child, was a Nephilistic attack on St. Rose Convent. And we responded by renouncing our work against them. I have never comprehended this. Mother Innocenta, may God rest her soul, would never let the murder of our people go unavenged.”
“Why, then, did we stop?” Evangeline asked.
“We wanted them to believe we were merely an abbey of nuns,” Philomena said. “If they thought we were weak and posed no threat to their power, they would cease their search for the object that they believed we possessed.”
“But we do not possess it. Abigail Rockefeller never disclosed its location before her death.”
“Do you truly believe this, my dear Evangeline? After all that has been kept from you? After all that has been kept from
me?
Celestine Clochette swayed Mother Perpetua to the pacifist stance. It is not in Celestine’s interest for the lyre of Orpheus to be unearthed. But I would wager my very life, my very soul, that she possesses information of its whereabouts. If you will help me find it, together we can rid the world of these monstrous beasts once and for all.”
Light from the sun streamed through the windows of the library, bathing Evangeline’s legs and pooling at the fireplace. Evangeline closed her eyes, contemplating this story in view of all she had taken in over the past day. “I have just learned that these monstrous beasts murdered my mother,” Evangeline whispered. She pulled Gabriella’s letters from her frock, but Philomena snatched them from her before she could give them over.
Philomena tore through the cards, reading them hungrily. Finally, upon coming to the last card, she declared, “This letter is incomplete. Where is the rest?”
Evangeline pulled out the final Christmas card she had collected from the morning mailbag. She turned it over and began to read her grandmother’s words aloud:
“‘I have told you much about the terrors of the past and something of the dangers that you face in the present, but there has been little in my communication about your future role in our work. I cannot say when this information will be of use to you—it may be that you will live your days in peaceful, quiet contemplation, faithfully carrying out your work at St. Rose. But it may be that you will be needed for a larger purpose. There is a reason your father chose St. Rose Convent as your home and a reason you have been trained in the angelological tradition that has nurtured our work for more than a millennium.’
“‘Mother Francesca, the founding abbess of the convent in which you have lived and grown these past thirteen years, built St. Rose Convent through the sheer force of faith and hard work, designing every chamber and stairwell to suit the needs of our angelologists in America. The Adoration Chapel was a feat of Francesca’s imagination, a sparkling tribute to the angels we study. Each piece of gold was inlaid to honor, each panel of glass hung in praise. What you may not know is that at the center of this chapel there is a small but priceless object of great spiritual and historical value.”’
“That is all,” Evangeline said, folding the letter and slipping it into the envelope. “The fragment ends there.”
“I knew it! The lyre is here with us. Come, child, we must share this wondrous news with Sister Perpetua.”
“But the lyre was hidden by Abigail Rockefeller in 1944,” Evangeline said, confused at Philomena’s train of thought. “This letter tells us nothing.”