The Devil's Own Crayons Read online

  The girl folded her arms in front of her and apologized to the floor. “Sorry.”

  He peeled off the girl’s wet socks and lifted her legs up onto the couch. “You need a nap.”

  Rolling onto her side so she faced the back of the sofa, she curled her knees up to her chest. “I want to go home.”

  He took an afghan off the top of the couch and dropped it over the child. “You are home.”

  “My real home.”

  “We talked about this,” he said, tucking a throw pillow under her head.

  “Where are my Crayolas?”

  “In your suitcase,” he said. “Shut your eyes.”

  “Crayolas.” The girl flipped over and reached toward her suitcase, closing and opening her small fists. “I need them.”

  The man gently rolled her so she faced the back of the couch again. He sat down on the edge of the sofa and rubbed her back over the afghan. “Sleep.”

  The child flapped onto her back and, with a wrinkled nose, registered another complaint: “This blanket smells like cheese.”

  “You smell like flowers.” He bent down and whispered in her ear.

  She yawned. “You’re silly.”

  “You’re sleepy.” He placed his large palm over the child’s eyes. “Sleep.”

  While he watched the child, the abbess watched him. High cheekbones. Narrow nose. Blue eyes, so washed out they were almost silver. Straight, white hair parted down the middle of a pink scalp and falling down to his shoulders. Full, pink lips. Too full and pink for a man, really. Pale, smooth skin. Unnaturally smooth. No shadows from beard stubble. His voice was unnaturally smooth as well. Monotone. Like listening to white noise. Unreal, as was his name: Jehu Levite. Both from the Old Testament, the first was the name of the king who slew Jezebel and the second was the man who butchered his concubine into twelve pieces. She never believed that was his real name. It was meant to mock her, and to warn her.

  When he pulled his hand away, the girl’s eyes were closed. Underneath the afghan, the small chest rose and fell with the cadence of deep sleep.

  “You’re good with her, Jehu.”

  “I love kids,” he said in a low voice. “They’re so pure and open.”

  “ ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God.’ ”

  “The operative word there is suffer.” He picked a strand of hair off the sleeping girl’s forehead. “So much suffering to get into that kingdom. So much misery. Man isn’t cut out for it. Don’t you agree, Mother?”

  “Suffering strengthens us,” she said.

  He made a dismissive noise and asked, “What did William Somerset Maugham write?”

  The abbess didn’t know if he really expected an answer, so she stayed silent.

  Levite stared down at the sleeping child, as if he were addressing her. “He said it’s not true that suffering ennobles the character. Happiness can do that on occasion. But suffering, all it does is make men petty and vindictive.”

  The girl kicked off the cover and flipped onto her stomach.

  “Shall we talk in another room?” the nun asked in a low voice.

  He shook his head and pulled the afghan up to the girl’s shoulders. “She’s a deep sleeper.”

  The abbess motioned toward a chair parked in front of her desk. Levite got up from the couch and took the seat. She went behind her desk and sat down. Nodded toward the couch. “She seems not as mature as the others. A little less...ready.”

  “She’ll be fine. All she needs is some rest.”

  The abbess dropped her voice. “How did they die this time?”

  “Read about it.” He pulled a set of papers out of his coat and dropped it on her desk. “All the death accounts will be in the girls’ files, so they know when they get older.”

  “I want to hear it from you.”

  “As you wish.” He crossed one knee over the other and recited flatly, “They won a trip to the Grand Canyon. Family vacation, all expenses paid.”

  “How fortuitous,” said the nun.

  They exchanged knowing looks and he continued. “It started to snow along the North Rim. He stepped onto a ledge with his camcorder and...”

  “He fell?” The nun shot another look at the sleeping child. “Where were his wife and daughter?”

  “Waiting for him in the coach bus with their driver and the other tourists. They didn’t see where he went down exactly. No one saw. An isolated spot. What do they call it? Tuweep Point. Took searchers days to find him.”

  “How unfortunate.”

  “They found the camcorder near the body,” he said. “The footage shows him kicking at a vicious dog.”

  “Black dog?”

  “Came out of nowhere. Sadly, the dog went over the edge with him.” He sighed heavily. “You won’t believe what happened after that.”

  “Yes?”

  He brought the tips of his long, pale fingers together. “The day after he was buried, his wife drove her car into a tree. Suicide, the police said. Thank God their daughter was at the sitter’s.”

  She pursed her lips. “Hmm.”

  “Yes?”

  “Couldn’t the mothers have been brought into the fold at least? Wouldn’t that have been easier?”

  “Obviously we didn’t think so.”

  “Questions will be raised.”

  “The deaths were all in very public places.”

  “But for all three to lose both parents, one after the other...”

  “These events took place at different times, in different seasons. On three continents.”

  “All three.”

  “These things had to happen a certain way.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew an envelope. Set it down and slid it toward her. “Before I forget...”

  Eyes flitting down to the white rectangle, she felt her cheeks flush, as if he’d slid some pornography across her desktop.

  “Open it,” he said. “See if it’s sufficient.”

  Gingerly, she plucked the envelope off the desk and peeked inside. A stack of bills as thick as a pocket Bible. “This...is too generous,” she stumbled. “My sisters can manage with less. Keep it for our other...work. The bread baking here has turned out to be quite successful.”

  He inhaled deeply. “Yes. Smells...heavenly. But woman shall not live by bread alone.”

  “ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of....’ ”

  “Yes, yes,” he said impatiently. “Matthew. I know. You need to expand your literary horizons. I prefer Albert Camus: ‘It’s a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money.’ You’re not a spiritual snob, are you Mother?”

  She tucked the flap back inside and dropped the envelope in a drawer. “I’m not even sure what to do with it all.”

  “You’ll figure it out. She’ll need things. So will the others. So will you and your convent.” He stretched his long legs out in front of him. “Love the name of your order, by the way. Did I ever tell you that? Little Sisters of the Orphans. Pithy and piteous at the same time.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t take credit for it,” she said dryly. “Our blessed founder...”

  “Tell me something,” he interrupted. “How do you reconcile your faith with...”

  “With my relationship with you and your group?”

  “Exactly.”

  “God brought you and I together for a reason.”

  He grinned lecherously and ran his tongue over his top teeth. “Indeed.”

  “He put these girls in my care for a reason.”

  “I put them in your care.”

  “God did, working through you. So all of this is in His plan. If you succeed...”

  “If we succeed...”

  “If we succeed, it is meant to be. We are meant to utilize the girls in this manner. They will be acting out a very important book of the Bible, thereby making the prophecies come to life.”

 
He laughed softly and shook his head. “Flawless rationalization.”

  Her eyes narrowed and she leaned forward. “You think this is nothing more than a play. A ruse. But what if it’s real? What if this is indeed how events are suppose to unfold?”

  “You and I had better be worried, Mother, because we’re on the wrong side.”

  “There is no right or wrong side, don’t you see? There is only God’s will.”

  “So bending to my will was bending to His?”

  She felt her face redden and switched subjects. “They will want to know how the girls ended up back here, with us,” she said. “People will want to know.”

  “Has anyone asked yet? Who wants to know?”

  “The other sisters. They’ve asked why the girls are back.”

  “What did you tell them, Mother?”

  “That they’ve got no one else, so they were returned to us.”

  “That is precisely what your paperwork will show.”

  “What paperwork?”

  “When you need paperwork, it will be there,” he said.

  “The state...”

  “Will also find all the appropriate paperwork has been filled out and approved.”

  She couldn’t understand how fabricated files alone would assure there’d be no investigation. “People will talk to each other, Jehu. The ones who’ve supposedly signed off on this documentation will have no memory of placing the girls back with us. They won’t recall physically handing the children over to us.”

  “Oh yes they will,” he said. “They will clearly remember. Flight attendants on the planes that brought the girls back home after the...accidents. Child protection staff that walked the girls up to your door. Everyone in between. They will all remember, or they will be told by their superiors to...remember.”

  She stiffened in her seat.

  “You’re afraid, and that’s good. A fool would have no fear.” He stood and started buttoning up his trench coat. “We’re finished, Mother.”

  Mother. He wouldn’t even user her fist name. “What if I...we have questions or problems?”

  He started for the door. “You will have both. I can promise you that.”

  She got up. “Jehu. Wait.”

  “I said we’re finished.” He unlocked the door, gave one last look to the girl on the couch and exited the room.

  With a rustle of her black skirt, the abbess hurried after him, following him down the corridor to the front door. “How do I contact you? I need a number.”

  He opened the front door and turned around. Behind him, the porch light shined, illuminating the rain. Coming down hard, the water strips of gray paper laid against the black night. “A phone number?”

  The expression on his face. The first real emotion she’d seen during his visit, and it was malice. She took a step backwards. “Please,” she said weakly.

  “You’re a link, Mother.” He turned up the collar of his coat. “Links don’t need to know anything. Their purpose is to hold together, to keep the chain intact. You need to hold these girls until you’re told to do otherwise.”

  “I’ve been loyal. I’ve done what I’ve been asked to do.”

  “Indeed, you have.” He took her hand in both of his, lifted her palm and kissed it.

  His fingers were soft and hot. His mouth, wet and sensuous. An image popped into her mind: Naked and covered with sweat, two entwined bodies - one of them hers – writhing and twisting on a white bed in a white room. A splash of blood against the covers. Red against white. Virginity lost.

  Inhaling sharply, she yanked back her hand. “Don’t touch me. You may not touch me anymore.”

  “Righteous indignation: I love it.” He threw his head back and laughed. “That’s more like it. The real you, Mother.”

  Hugging her hand to her bosom, she fingered her gold wedding band, worn by every member of her order. “I am still a bride of Christ.”

  He bent over her and whispered in her ear. “Ego te sponsabo.”

  She leaned away from him. That was what was engraved inside her ring. Inside all their gold bands. Latin for I will wed thee. How did he know that? Did they know everything? She wasn’t going to let him distract her, and continued with her questions. “When does it begin? At least give me that.”

  “We think it will start in earnest in the spring, after they turn six.”

  “How do you know?”

  “From past experience.” Turning around, he bounded off the porch steps and jogged through the rain to his car.

  The nun stood in the doorway and clutched the frame with her hand, the hand he’d kissed. Her palm still felt warm and wet from him, and the obscene image kept seeping back into her mind. Sewage running down a white wall.

  Watching the pale green sedan pull down the driveway, she wondered when she’d see him again. Wondered how this thing was going to play itself out. She despised the role to which she’d been relegated. A mere link.

  One of the novices came up behind her. “It’s really coming down.”

  “Did you leave your prayers to deliver a weather report, Sister Jane?”

  “We were worried about you, Mother.”

  The abbess shut the door and turned the deadbolt. “What could happen out here in the country?”

  “Who was it?”

  “None of your concern.” The mother superior pivoted around while repeatedly wiping her hand on her skirt. She couldn’t rid herself of the memory of his mouth on her hand, or the image of her body entwined with another.

  Sister Jane watched the older woman’s preoccupation with her hand. “Mother Magdalen? Are you okay?”

  “Go make up a bed.”

  “Why? Don’t tell me another social worker...”

  “Don’t ask questions.” The abbess brushed by the young woman and headed for the restroom. “Do it.”

  The mother superior locked both fists over the edge of the sink. Closed her eyes and took a deep, bracing breath.

  Sister Jane cracked the door open and asked tentatively, “Mother? We were wondering where...”

  She opened her eyes and straightened her back. “She’s sleeping on the couch in my office.”

  The young woman came back a minute later, while the abbess was washing her hands. “Mother?”

  “Why is it so difficult for you to follow instructions?” asked the older woman, angrily balling the paper towel.

  Sister Jane dropped her lashes and said in a low voice, “We were wondering if we should put her with the other two.”

  “What do you think?” snapped the abbess, tossing the towel in the wastebasket.

  “She’s crying. What if she wakes them?”

  “Handle it. She’s a child.”

  “But...”

  “Handle it.”

  “Yes, Mother.” The novice quietly closed the door.

  In the mirror, the abbess saw a thin, forty-something woman who hadn’t weathered the years well. Her cheeks were sunken and dark rings smudged the skin under her eyes. Worry sliced lines across her forehead and etched a parenthesis around her thin lips.

  She had good cause to worry. Nearly everyone beneath her –twenty nuns - was either a child, or old and weak. Once again, she had to be the strongest of the group, the one to make the sacrifice. She accepted this; she’d been raised for the role. The oldest in a large farm family, she was the one the parish priest had identified as a candidate for the religious life. At a young age, she’d been sent off to a Catholic boarding school, and stayed there until she took her vows. Her order had groomed her for a leadership position, and she was put her in charge of a monastery of cloistered women.

  After years there, she’d taken a leave to think and pray about her priorities. That’s when she’d met the man who called himself Jehu Levite, and fallen away for a while. Lost herself in his arms. Those months were a blur, really. When she reflected back – something she tried not to do – all she could recall was that tangle of limbs. And the end. She remembered the end far too clearly.
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  Her lover told her to go back to the monastery.

  The order took her back, but would not allow her to return to the cloistered life. Perhaps as a punishment or a test of her commitment, she was sent to a convent ready to fold for lack of money and purpose. A dying orphanage in the countryside. Days before she arrived, triplets were left on the convent doorstep - a punctuation mark to the challenge she’d been issued.

  Mother Magdalen had surprised them all by turning it around. She’d tightened up the discipline and reinstituted the traditional habits abandoned by so many other American nuns. The few remaining children – including the triplets – were adopted out. She replaced the orphanage with a new mission: Bread baking, with profits going to orphanages around the world.

  Things were going well – until Jehu contacted her out of the blue. He’d informed her that the triplets would be returning, to be raised in a more controlled setting. She’d protested. How was any of this his business? Besides, her convent had changed its mission, and there was no room for children in it.

  That’s when he’d told her about his mission.

  At first, she’d thought her former lover was insane. Then Jehu had introduced her to the others. So many others, and so many of them high up politically and socially. They had been watching her rise through the religious ranks, and had arranged certain things in her life. Certain events and assignments. They’d asked her to work for them, for their mission, while keeping their existence secret. Even the other sisters couldn’t know. She’d felt frightened, yet also strangely flattered.

  With the last of the three girls delivered to her with no explanation other than to hold them, she felt both used and confused.

  Still, she obediently and patiently waited for the spring.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Tapping her foot impatiently, Samantha Rossi waited outside Leonardo Da Vinci Airport and shaded her eyes from the spring sunshine. She wondered when her ride would show and where it would take her.

  The haze had settled over her forty-eight hours earlier, when she’d been summoned from Los Angeles to headquarters in Washington. Her boss in L.A. – the Special Agent in Charge of the Counterterrorism Division - claimed he had no knowledge of what was afoot, but advised her to pack for a long trip.