Gabriella’s side. The pages were written in florid cursive. Lifting a soft, wrinkled sheet, he attempted
to read the script—elegant, looping, exceptionally illegible penmanship that washed across the
unlined paper in faded blue waves. It was nearly impossible to decipher in the dim light.
“You can read it?” Gabriella asked, leaning over the table and rotating a page, as if approaching it
from a new angle might clarify the tangle of letters. “I find it difficult to make out her writing at all.”
“It takes a bit of getting used to,” Verlaine said. “But yes, I can manage it.”
“Then you can help me,” Gabriella said. “We need to determine if this correspondence is going to
be of any real assistance.”
“I’ll give it a try,” Verlaine said. “But first I would like you to tell me what I’m looking for.”
“Particular locations mentioned in the correspondence,” Gabriella said. “Locations where Abigail
Rockefeller had full access. Perhaps an institution where she had the authority to come and go as she
wished. Seemingly innocuous references to addresses, streets, hotels. Secure locations, of course, but
not too secure.”
“That could be half of New York,” Verlaine said. “If I’m going to find anything at all in these
letters, I need to know exactly what you’re seeking.”
Gabriella stared out the window. Finally she said, “Long ago a band of rogue angels called the
Watchers were condemned to be held in a cave in the remotest regions of Europe. Entrusted to
deliver the prisoners, the archangels bound the Watchers and thrust them into a deep cavern. As the
Watchers fell, the archangels heard their cries of anguish. It was an agony so great that in a moment of
pity the Archangel Gabriel threw the wretched creatures a golden lyre—a lyre of angelic perfection, a
lyre whose music was so miraculous that the prisoners would spend hundreds of years in contentment,
pacified by its melodies. Gabriel’s mistake had grave repercussions. The lyre proved to be a solace
and strength to the Watchers. They not only entertained themselves in the depths of the earth, they
became stronger and more ambitious in their desires. They learned that the lyre’s music gave them
extraordinary power.”
“What kind of power?” Verlaine inquired.
“The power to play at being God,” Gabriella said. She lit another cigarette and resumed. “It is a
phenomenon taught exclusively in our ethereal musicology seminars to the advanced students at
angelological academies. As the universe was created by the vibration of God’s voice—by the music
of His Word—so the universe can be altered, enhanced, or entirely undone by the music of His
messengers, the angels. The lyre—and other celestial instruments fashioned by the angels, many of
which we have had in our possession throughout the centuries—has the power to effect such changes,
or so we speculate. The degree of power these instruments contains varies. Our ethereal
musicologists believe that at the correct frequency any number of cosmic changes could occur.
Perhaps the sky will be red, the sea purple, and the grass orange. Perhaps the sun will chill the air
rather than heat it. Perhaps devils will populate the continents. It is believed that one of the powers of
the lyre is to restore the sick to health.”
Verlaine stared at her, flabbergasted at what this otherwise rational woman had just said.
“It makes little sense to you now,” she said, taking the original letters and giving them to Verlaine.
“But read the letters to me. I would like to hear them. It will help me think.”
Verlaine scanned the sheets, found the beginning date of the correspondence—June 5, 1943—and
began to read. Although Mother Innocenta’s style posed a challenge—every sentence was grandiose
in tone, each thought pounded into writing as if with an iron hammer—he soon fell into the cadences
of her prose.
The first contained little more than a polite exchange of formalities and was composed with a
tentative, halting tone, as if Innocenta were feeling her way toward Mrs. Rockefeller through a
darkened hallway. Nonetheless, the odd reference to Mrs. Rockefeller’s artistry was contained even
in this letter— “Please know that the perfection of your artistic vision, and the execution of your
fancy, is well noted and accepted” —a reference that brought all of Verlaine’s ambition back the
instant he read it. The second letter was a longer and slightly more intimate missive in which
Innocenta explained her gratitude to Mrs. Rockefeller for the important role she held in the future of