Angelology(10)

“More?” Verlaine asked, perplexed.

“These drawings you’ve brought are interesting artifacts,” Percival said, returning them to Verlaine

with a dismissive flourish, “but they are secondary to the job at hand. If you have obtained

information connecting Abigail Rockefeller to this particular convent, I expect you have sought

access? What progress there?”

“I sent a request to the convent just yesterday,” Verlaine said. “I’m waiting for the response.”

“Waiting?” Percival said, his voice rising in irritation.

“I need permission to enter the archives,” Verlaine said.

The young man displayed only a slight hesitation, a hint of color in his cheeks, the faintest

bafflement in his manner, but Percival seized upon this insecurity with furious suspicion. “There will

be no waiting. Either you will find the information that is of interest to my family—information that

you have been given ample time and resources to discover—or you will not.”

“There’s nothing more I can do without access to the convent.”

“How long will it take to gain access?”

“It isn’t going to be easy. I’ll need formal permission to get in the front door. If they give me the go-

ahead, it could take weeks before I find anything worthwhile. I’m planning to take a trip upstate after

the New Year. It’s a long process.”

Grigori folded the maps and returned them to Verlaine, his hands shaking. Suppressing his

annoyance, he removed a cash-filled envelope from the inside pocket of his overcoat.

“What’s this?” Verlaine asked, looking at the contents, his astonishment apparent at finding a pack

of crisp hundred-dollar bills.

Percival put his hand upon Verlaine’s shoulder, feeling a human warmth that he found foreign and

alluring. “It is a bit of a drive up,” he said, leading Verlaine along the walkway toward Columbus

Circle, “but I believe you have time to make it before nightfall. This bonus will compensate for the

inconvenience. Once you’ve had a chance to complete your work and have brought me verification of

Abigail Rockefeller’s association with this convent, we will continue our discussion.”

St. Rose Convent, Milton, New York

Evangeline walked to the far end of the fourth floor, beyond the television room to a rickety iron door

that opened upon a set of mildewed steps. Mindful of the softness of the wood, she followed the steps

up, moving with the curvature of the damp stone wall until she stood in a narrow, circular turret high

above the convent’s grounds. The tower was the only piece of the original structure remaining in the

upper floors. It grew from the Adoration Chapel itself, rose in a twist of spiraled stairs past the

second and third floors and opened up on the fourth floor, giving the sisters access from their

bedroom chambers straight to the chapel. Although the turret had been designed to offer the sisters a

direct path to their midnight devotionals, it had long been abandoned for the main staircase, which

had the benefit of heat and electricity. Although the fire of 1944 had not reached the turret, Evangeline

sensed smoke lingering in the rafters, as if the room had inhaled the sticky tar of the fumes and

stopped breathing. Electrical wiring had never been installed, and the only light came from a series of

lancet windows with heavy, handmade leaded glass that spanned the east curve of the tower. Even

now, at midday, the room was consumed by an icy darkness as the relentless north wind rattled

against the glass.

Evangeline pressed her hands upon the chilled windowpane. In the distance, anemic winter

sunshine fell over a rise of rolling hills. Even the sunniest of December days cast a pall over the

landscape, as if light passed through an unfocused lens. In the summer months, an abundance of

brightness collected upon the trees each afternoon, giving the leaves an iridescent hue that winter

light, no matter how bright, could not match. A month before, perhaps five weeks, the leaves had been

brilliant umber, red, orange, yellow, a quiltwork of color reflected in the brown glass of river water.

Evangeline imagined day-trippers from New York City taking the passenger train along the east side

of the Hudson, gazing at the lovely foliage on their way to pick apples or pumpkins. Now the trees

were bare, the hills covered with snow.

Evangeline took refuge in the tower only rarely, at best once or twice a year, when her thoughts

drew her away from the community at large and sent her in search of a quiet place to think. It was not

the usual order of things for one of the sisters to steal away from the group for contemplation, and

Evangeline would often feel remorse for her actions for days after. And yet she could not stay away