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Precious Blood(7)

By:Jane Haddam


The last of the children came through the church doors, followed by Sister Peter Rose. Peter Rose nodded a silent question to Scholastica and gave Reverend Mother General a deferential little smile. Then she hurried away after Timmy Moore, who was in the process of stealing a Hostess Twinkie from Janie O’Brien’s back pocket. Scholastica sighed. Easter was supposed to be a spring holiday. Lent was supposed to be a gradually thawing slide into warmer weather. But Lent and Easter were both early this year. It was Ash Wednesday, but it was February instead of March. It had been snowing steadily since ten o’clock the night before, when Reverend Mother General got in. From the look of it, it was going to go on snowing for a week.

“Sometimes,” Scholastica told Reverend Mother General as they started down the steps, “I wish we’d never given up full habit. Oh, I know the wimple used to cut—”

“It used to do more than cut,” Reverend Mother General said. “It gave me a scrape down the side of my face that took a year to go away after we gave it up.”

“It gave me, a notch in my chin. Still. Maybe what we should have done was had the wimples made out of soft material, without starch, like the Benedictines. Full habit looked better. And at least it kept you warm in the snow.”

“I don’t know if you realize it, Sister, but we modified the habit even before you came to us. Back in the fifties, we wore five sets of underwear.”

“I could use five sets of underwear in this cold,” Scholastica said. She led Reverend Mother General along the sidewalk, opened the wrought-iron gate that led to the path that led across the courtyard to the school, then stepped back to let Reverend Mother General pass. It was a good thing she liked Reverend Mother General, she thought. It was a better thing that she respected her. It would have been terrible to have been made to feel this uncomfortable, and awkward—Reverend Mother General was so tiny and Scholastica herself was so tall—by someone who didn’t also make her feel in awe.

Scholastica closed the gate and latched it. Then she said, “I’m sorry about Father Walsh, Reverend Mother. He has—enthusiasms.”

“I’ve heard about Father Walsh’s enthusiasms.” Reverend Mother smiled. “Did he really consecrate bran muffins at a mass for the CYO?”

“Oat bran muffins,” Scholastica said. “The Cardinal Archbishop was wild.”

“I can imagine.”

“Personally, I think O’Bannion should have been grateful it wasn’t alfalfa sprouts. That’s the kind of thing Andy would do.”

“Have you known Father Walsh long?”

“All my life. We grew up next door to each other on Garrison Street. I’ve known Cardinal O’Bannion forever, too. He was schools’ chaplain when I was at Cathedral Girls’ High.”

“Do you mind being back here in Colchester, Sister? Would it have been better for you if we’d sent you somewhere—exotic?”

“There wasn’t anywhere exotic you could have sent me, Reverend Mother. Where would I have gone? Maine?”

“We do run a high school in New York City.”

“No, thank you. I’d be afraid of getting mugged.”

“What about back to the Motherhouse?”

“Excuse me?”

They were only steps from the door to the school, standing with their feet ankle deep in snow on the asphalt path—and standing still, Scholastica realized. Reverend Mother had stopped, and without thinking about it Scholastica had stopped, too. What confused Scholastica was that Reverend Mother didn’t seem to want to move, even though the wind was blowing stiff and hard and she had to be freezing to death. God only knew, Scholastica was freezing to death herself.

“Don’t you want to go inside, Reverend Mother?” she said. “I could make us some tea and we could thaw out.”

“No.” Reverend Mother shook her head emphatically. “In case you haven’t guessed, Sister, there’s something I want to talk to you about. I don’t want to be—overheard by secretaries.”

“By secretaries?”

“By nuns, then. It won’t kill us to get a little fresh air.”

“This particular fresh air is likely to give us pneumonia, Reverend Mother.”

“Nonsense.” Reverend Mother General shooed this away. Then she bit her lip and looked toward the classroom windows on the first floor. The windows were covered with construction paper crosses and Eucharistic symbols for the start of Lent. “I have a little bad news for you,” she said. “Sister Mary Jerome had a stroke last week.”

“Oh, Lord.” Scholastica winced. Sister Jerome had been Mistress of Novices for the order for as long as anybody could remember. It wasn’t a position that normally made a nun beloved, but Jerome was a brick. Even the girls she sent home never had a bad word to say about her. “Is she all right, Reverend Mother? She isn’t—”