Brother Odd

She said, “Now and then I dream of Frankenstein because of a movie I saw when I was a little girl. In my dream, there’s an ancient windmill hung with ragged rotting sails creaking ’round in a storm. A ferocity of rain, sky-splitting bolts of lightning, leaping shadows, stairwells of cold stone, hidden doors in bookcases, candlelit secret passageways, bizarre machines with gold-plated gyroscopes, crackling arcs of electricity, a demented hunchback with lantern eyes, always the lumbering monster close behind me, and a scientist in a white lab coat carrying his own severed head.”

Finished, she smiled at me.

“Just an exploding boiler,” I said.

“God has many reasons to love you, Oddie, but for certain He loves you because you’re such an inexperienced and incompetent liar.”

“I’ve told some whoppers in my time,” I assured her.

“The claim that you have told whoppers is the biggest whopper you have told.”

“At nun school, you must’ve been president of the debating team.”

“Fess up, young man. You didn’t dream about an exploding boiler. Something else has you worried.”

I shrugged.

“You were checking on the children in their rooms.”

She knew that I saw the lingering dead. But I had not told her or Abbot Bernard about bodachs.

Because these bloodthirsty spirits are drawn by events with high body counts, I hadn’t expected to encounter them in a place as remote as this. Towns and cities are their natural hunting grounds.

Besides, those who accept my assertion that I see the lingering dead are less likely to believe me if too soon in our acquaintance I begin to talk, as well, about sinuous shadowy demons that delight in scenes of death and destruction.

A man who has one pet monkey might be viewed as charmingly eccentric. But a man who has made his home into a monkey house, with scores of chattering chimpanzees capering through the rooms, will have lost credibility with the mental-health authorities.

I decided to unburden myself, however, because Sister Angela is a good listener and has a reliable ear for insincerity. Two reliable ears. Perhaps the wimple around her face serves as a sound-focusing device that brings to her greater nuances in other people’s speech than those of us without wimples are able to hear.

I’m not saying that nuns have the technical expertise of Q, the genius inventor who supplies James Bond with way-cool gadgets in the movies. It’s a theory I won’t dismiss out of hand, but I can’t prove anything.

Trusting in her goodwill and in the crap-detecting capability made possible by her wimple, I told her about the bodachs.

She listened intently, her face impassive, giving no indication whether or not she thought I was psychotic.

With the power of her personality, Sister Angela can compel you to meet her eyes. Perhaps a few strong-willed people are able to look away from her stare after she has locked on to their eyes, but I’m not one of them. By the time I told her all about bodachs, I felt pickled in periwinkle.

When I finished, she studied me in silence, her expression unreadable, and just when I thought she had decided to pray for my sanity, she accepted the truth of everything I’d told her by saying simply, “What must be done?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s a most unsatisfactory answer.”

“Most,” I agreed. “The thing is, the bodachs showed up only half an hour ago. I haven’t observed them long enough to be able to guess what’s drawn them here.”

Cowled by voluminous sleeves, her hands closed into pink, white-knuckled fists. “Something’s going to happen to the children.”

“Not necessarily all the children. Maybe some of them. And maybe not just to the children.”

“How much time do we have until … whatever?”

“Usually they show up a day or two ahead of the event. To savor the sight of those who are …” I was reluctant to say more.

Sister Angela finished my sentence: “… soon to die.”

“If there’s a killer involved, a human agent instead of, say, an exploding propane-fired boiler, they’re sometimes as fascinated with him as with the potential victims.”

“We have no murderers here,” said Sister Angela.

“What do we really know about Rodion Romanovich?”

“The Russian gentleman in the abbey guesthouse?”

“He glowers,” I said.

“At times, so do I.”

“Yes, ma’am, but it’s a concerned sort of glower, and you’re a nun.”

“And he’s a spiritual pilgrim.”

“We have proof you’re a nun, but we only have his word about what he is.”

“Have you seen bodachs following him around?”

“Not yet.”

Sister Angela frowned, short of a glower, and said, “He’s been kind to us here at the school.”

“I’m not accusing Mr. Romanovich of anything. I’m just curious about him.”

“After Lauds, I’ll speak to Abbot Bernard about the need for vigilance in general.”

Lauds is morning prayer, the second of seven periods in the daily Divine Office that the monks observe.

At St. Bartholomew’s Abbey, Lauds immediately follows Matins—the singing of psalms and readings from the saints—which begins at 5:45 in the morning. It concludes no later than 6:30.

I switched off the computer and got to my feet. “I’m going to look around some more.”

In a billow of white habit, Sister Angela rose from her chair. “If tomorrow is to be a day of crisis, I’d better get some sleep. But in an emergency, don’t hesitate to call me on my cell number at any hour.”

I smiled and shook my head.

“What is it?” she asked.

“The world turns and the world changes. Nuns with cell phones.”

“An easy thing to get your mind around,” she said. “Easier than factoring into your philosophy a fry cook who sees dead people.”