Eurydice, from the oblivion of Hades. In Greek mythology Orpheus was reputed to have given
humanity music, writing, and medicine and is often thought to have promoted the cult of Dionysus.
Apollo gave Orpheus a golden lyre and taught him to play music that had the power to tame animals,
make inanimate objects come to life, and soothe all of creation, including the dwellers of the
underworld. Many archaeologists and historians claim that he promoted ecstatic and mystical
practices to the common people. Indeed, it is speculated that the Thracians performed human
sacrifices during ecstatic Dionysian rituals, leaving dismembered bodies to decompose in the karst-
filled gorge of the Devil’s Throat.
Evangeline had become engrossed in reading about the history of Orpheus and his place in ancient
mythology, yet the information was not in keeping with Celestine’s account. She had made no mention
of Orpheus or the Dionysian cultists he had allegedly inspired. Therefore it came as quite a surprise
to find her attention completely diverted upon reading the next paragraph:
In the Christian era, the Devil’s Throat cavern was believed to be the location where the rebel angels
fell after their expulsion from heaven. Christians living in the area believed that the sharp vertical
descent at the cave’s opening was carved by Lucifer’s fiery body as it plummeted through the earth to
hell—hence the cavern’s name. In addition, the cave was long believed to be the prison not only of
the original contingent of fallen angels but also the prison of the “Sons of God,” the oft-contested
creatures of the pseudoepigraphical Book of Enoch. Known as the “Watchers” by Enoch and the
“Sons of Heaven” in the Bible, this group of disobedient angels earned God’s disfavor after
consorting with human women and producing the species of angelic-human hybrids called the
Nephilim (see Genesis 6). The Watchers were imprisoned below the earth after their crime. Their
underground prison is referenced throughout the Bible. See Jude 1:6.
Leaving the book open, she stood and walked to the New American Bible lying on an oak pedestal
table at the center of the library. Paging through, she skimmed past the Creation, the Fall, and the
murder of Abel by Cain. Stopping at Genesis 6, she read:
I When men began to multiply on earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of heaven saw
how beautiful the daughters of man were, and so they took for their wives as many of them as they
chose. 3 Then the LORD said: “My spirit shall not remain in man forever, since he is but flesh. His
days shall comprise one hundred and twenty years.” 4 At that time the Nephilim appeared on earth (as
well as later), after the sons of heaven had intercourse with the daughters of man, who bore them
sons. They were the heroes of old, the men of renown. 5 When the LORD saw how great was man’s
wickedness on earth, and how no desire that his heart conceived was ever anything but evil, 6 he
regretted that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was grieved. So the LORD said: “I will
wipe out from the earth the men whom I have created, and not only the men, but also the beasts and the
creeping things and the birds of the air, for I am sorry that I made them.”
This was the passage from which Celestine had quoted earlier that afternoon. Although Evangeline
had read through that section of Genesis hundreds of times before—as a girl, when her mother read
Genesis aloud to her, it had been her first great narrative infatuation, the most dramatic, cataclysmic,
awe-inspiring story she’d ever heard—she had never paused to think about these odd details: the
birth of strange creatures called Nephilim, the condemnation of men to live only 120 years, the
disappointment the Creator felt in his creation, the maliciousness of the Deluge. In all her studies, in
all her preparations as a novice, in all the hours of biblical discussion she had participated in with
the other sisters at St. Rose, this passage had never once been analyzed. She read the passage again,
pausing to consider the phrase At that time the Nephilim appeared on earth (as well as later), after
the sons of heaven had intercourse with the daughters of man, who bore them sons. They were the
heroes of old, the men of renown. Then she turned to Jude and read: The angels too, who did not
keep to their own domain but deserted their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains, in
gloom, for the judgment of the great day.
Feeling the onset of a headache, Evangeline closed the Bible. Her father’s voice filled her mind,
and once again she climbed the stairs of a cold, dusty warehouse, her Mary Janes soft upon the metal
steps. The sharp shearing of a wing, the luminosity of a body, the strange and beautiful presence of the