If there is an angel as mediator for him,
One out of a thousand,
To remind a man what is right for him,
Then let him be gracious to him, and say,
“Deliver him from going down to the pit,
I have found a ransom.”
– Job 33:23-24
Evangeline had read the passage every day of her many years at St. Rose Convent, and each day the words had seemed an unsolvable puzzle. The sentence had slithered through her thoughts, slick and ungraspable, moving through her mind without catching. Now the words “mediator” and “pit” and “ransom” began to fit into place. Sister Celestine had been right: Once she began looking, she would find angelology living and breathing everywhere.
It dismayed her that the sisters had kept so much from her. Recalling Gabriella’s voice on the telephone, Evangeline wondered if perhaps she should pack her things and go to New York. Perhaps her grandmother could help her understand everything more clearly. The hold the convent had had on her only the day before had diminished by all that she’d learned.
A hand on her shoulder disturbed her from her thoughts. Sister Philomena motioned for Evangeline to follow her. Obeying, Evangeline left the Adoration Chapel, feeling a mixture of embarrassment and anger. The sisters had not trusted her with the truth. How could Evangeline possibly trust them?
“Come, Sister,” Philomena said once they were in the hallway. Whatever anger Philomena must have felt at Evangeline’s truancy had disappeared. Now her manner was inexplicably gentle and resigned. And yet something about Sister Philomena’s demeanor seemed disingenuous. Evangeline didn’t entirely believe her to be genuine, although she couldn’t pinpoint why. Together they headed through the central hallway of the convent, past the photographs of distinguished mothers and sisters and the painting of St. Rose of Viterbo, stopping before a familiar set of wooden doors. It was only natural that Philomena would lead her to the library, where they could speak with some measure of privacy. Philomena unlocked the doors, and Evangeline stepped into the shadowy room.
“Sit, child, sit,” Philomena said. Evangeline arranged herself on the green velvet sofa, across from the fireplace. The room was cold, the result of the perennially ill-fitting flue. Sister Philomena went to a table near her office and plugged in the electric kettle. When the water boiled, she poured it into a porcelain pot. Setting two cups on a tray, she waddled back to the sofa, placing the tray on a low table. Taking the wooden chair opposite Evangeline, she opened a metal cookie box and offered Evangeline an assortment of FSPA Christmas Cookies-butter cookies that had been baked, frosted, packaged, and sold by the sisters for their annual Christmas fund-raiser.
The fragrance of the tea-black with a hint of dried apricot-made Evangeline’s stomach turn. “I’m not feeling very well,” she said by way of apology.
“You were missed at dinner last night and, of course, at adoration this morning,” Philomena said, choosing a Christmas-tree cookie with green frosting. She lifted the pot and poured some tea into the cups. “But I am not much surprised. This has been a great ordeal with Celestine, hasn’t it?” Philomena’s posture became very erect, her hand holding the teacup rigid over her saucer, and Evangeline knew that Philomena was about to cut to the heart of the matter.
“Yes,” Evangeline replied, expecting the impatient and stern Philomena to return any moment.
Philomena clucked her tongue and said, “I knew that it was inevitable you would learn the truth of your origins someday. I was not sure how, mind you, but I had a vivid sense that the past would be impossible to bury completely, even in such a closed community as ours. In my humble opinion,” Philomena continued, finishing off her cookie and taking another, “it has been quite a burden for Celestine to remain silent. It has been a burden for all of us to remain so passive in the face of the threat that surrounds us.”
“You knew of Celestine’s involvement in this…” Evangeline fumbled, trying to formulate the correct words to describe angelology. She had the unwelcome thought that perhaps she was the only Franciscan Sister of Adoration who had been kept ignorant. “This… discipline?”
“Oh, my, yes,” Philomena said. “All of the older sisters know. The sisters of my generation were steeped in angelic study-Genesis 28:I2-I7, Ezekiel 1:1-14, Luke I:26-38. Bless me, it was angels morning, noon, and night!”
Philomena adjusted her weight on her chair, making the wood groan, and continued, “One day I was deep into the core curriculum prescribed by European angelologists-our longtime mentors-and the next our convent was nearly destroyed. All of our scholarship, all of our efforts toward ridding the world of the pestilence of the Nephilim, seemed to be to have been for naught. Suddenly we were simple nuns whose lives were devoted to prayer and prayer alone. Believe me, I have fought hard to bring us back to the fight, to declare ourselves combatants. Those in our number who believe that it’s too dangerous are fools and cowards.”
“Dangerous?” Evangeline said.
“The fire of ’44 was not an accident,” Philomena said, narrowing her eyes. “It was a direct attack. It could be said that we were careless, that we underestimated the bloodthirsty nature of the Nephilim here in America. They were aware of many-if not all-of the enclaves of angelologists in Europe. We made the mistake of thinking that America was still as safe as it had once been. I’m sorry to say that Sister Celestine’s presence exposed St. Rose Convent to great danger. After Celestine came, so did the attacks. Not just on our convent, mind you. There were nearly one hundred attacks on American convents that year-a concerted effort by the Nephilim to discover which of us had what they wanted.”
“But why?”
“Because of Celestine, of course,” Philomena said. “She was well known by the enemy. When she arrived, I myself saw how sickly, how battered, how scarred she was. Clearly she had gone through a harrowing escape. And, perhaps most significant, she carried a parcel for Mother Innocenta, something meant to be secured here, with us. Celestine had something that they wanted. They knew she had taken refuge in the United States, only they did not know where.”
“And Mother Innocenta knew everything of this?” Evangeline asked.
“Of course,” Philomena said, raising her eyebrows in wonder, whether at Mother Innocenta or the question, Evangeline was not sure. “Mother Innocenta was the premier scholar of her era in America. She had been trained by Mother Antonia, who was the student of Mother Clara, our most beloved abbess, who had, in turn, been instructed by Mother Francesca herself, who-to the benefit of our great nation-came to Milton, New York, directly from the European Angelological Society to build the American branch. St. Rose Convent was the beating heart of the American Angelological Project, a grand undertaking, far more ambitious than whatever Celestine Clochette had been doing in Europe before she tagged along on the Second Expedition.” Philomena, who had been speaking very rapidly, paused to take a deep breath. “Indeed,” she said, slowly, “Mother Innocenta would never, never have given up the fight so easily had she not been murdered at the hands of the Nephilim.”
Evangeline said, “I thought she died in the fire.”
“That is what we told the outer world, but it is not the truth.” Philomena’s skin flushed red and then blanched to a very pale color, as if the act of discussing the fire brought her skin in contact with a phantom heat.
“I happened to be in the balcony of Maria Angelorum when the fire broke out. I was cleaning the pipes of the Casavant organ, a terribly difficult chore. With fourteen hundred and twenty-two pipes, twenty stops, and thirty ranks, it was hard enough to dust the organ, but Mother Innocenta had assigned me the twice-yearly task of polishing the brass! Imagine it! I believe that Mother Innocenta was punishing me for something, although it completely slips my mind what I could have done to displease her.”