by David Risen
“What seems to be the problem?” someone says from the hallway behind the young nun.
The other woman stands just out of Amelia’s sight.
Sister Mary Francis sighs. “She wants to speak with you. I told her how busy you are and asked if I could help, but I’m apparently not good enough.”
“That will be all, Mary Francis,” the other woman says.
Sister Francis deflates, and then she turns and disappears through the beads in the archway.
The source of the voice appears from the other hallway, and the look of her floors Amelia. Her friend, a nun working on a medical degree at the university told her that Sister Hunter was one of the most educated women she’d ever met, but the woman standing before her barely looks old enough to have a high school diploma.
“I’m Sister Hunter. What can I do for you?”
Sister Hunter seems to be emulating the style presented by Mary Tyler Moore in the 1968 movie “Change of Habit,” in which Moore starred opposite Elvis Presley.
Shoulder-length hair, flared at the bottom. Symmetrical face. Long, black eyelashes.
Amelia laughs assertively. “You’re not exactly what I expected.”
Sister Hunter smiles genuinely – the expression is so friendly that it instantly disarms her.
“I know. Ph.D., a master’s, plus I’m a nun. I should be a dumpy, old woman with a nasty look on my face.”
Amelia laughs.
“So to what do I owe the honor?” Sister Hunter says.
Amelia clears her throat.
“My friend, Sister Parker, suggested that I come and speak with you about a rather odd problem I have.”
Sister Hunter nods. “Are you Amelia Long?”
Amelia’s eyes bulge. “What did she tell you?”
Sister Hunter holds up her hand. “Not much and what she did say was coded and cryptic. Would you like to step into my office?”
Amelia shrugs.
Sister Hunter turns and starts her down the hallway from which she appeared. At the end of the hall, she opens a plain, metal door painted lime green with a plaque on it that simply states, “Mother Superior.”
She opens the door, and guides her into a room with dark, thin paneling and offers her a seat before a gray, metal desk. Amelia sits and looks around, as Sister Hunter shut the door.
The walnut-colored paneling in the room and the thick, green drapes over the window behind the desk causes it to look dreary even with the florescent lighting. Adding to the macabre ambience is the grotesque painted crucifixes hanging to either side of the window.
“Can I offer you a Coke or maybe a Tab?”
“No thank you.”
Sister Hunter steps in and closes the door, and then she takes her place behind the desk.
“So what can I help you understand?”
Amelia licks her lips and leans forward.
“What exactly did she tell you about me?”
Sister Hunter smiles. By now, Rider has caught on to the fact that Sister Hunter’s inviting smile really is a fake attempt to set his host at ease. “She told me that she witnessed a number of events that she couldn’t explain.”
Amelia sits back. “Did she give you an example?”
Sister Hunter tightens her lips and looks up at the ceiling.
“She said that you once had an argument with her when you were roommates. She accused you of eating her food, or something. In the middle of it, she heard a crash in the kitchen, and when she went to see what the noise was, the refrigerator door was swinging open and all of her food splattered all over the kitchen.
“She also said that at your graduation party last spring, a premed student got drunk and grabbed you in an inappropriate manner. You glared at him, and he flew into the wall behind him hard enough to give him a concussion. Is all of that accurate?”
Amelia gives her a deer in the headlights look. “I don’t know what to say.”
Sister Hunter looks in her eyes. “What you think, of course.”
Amelia makes a wry face. “I have no wish to start the second inquisition, and the Catholic Church is not particularly tolerant of unusual individuals....”
Sister Hunter’s eyes narrow. “I’ll be the first to tell you that the Vatican can be narrow-minded and dogmatic. I’m sure if they caught wind of some of my more radical beliefs, we’d have an ugly scandal on our hands.”
Amelia gives her a puzzled look. “What beliefs?”
Sister Hunter leans back in her chair. “For one thing, I’m a little bit of a pantheist. I believe that there’s a little bit of God in everything and everyone around us, and if we know how to tap into it, we can work miracles of our own.”
Amelia squints. “Why is that scandalous?”
Sister Hunter gives her a stern professorial look. “Because this belief is not consistent with the doctrines of Christianity. The Church teaches that the mind and spirit are separate, but I don’t believe they are. They would have us believe that God is an omnipotent, anthropomorphic, and paternal being, and I don’t altogether subscribe to that vision.”
“What do you believe?”
She gives her a helpless look. “The church assigns good and evil values to things that are actually neutral. They exalt truth and honesty above all else, but the truth destroys people much more completely than lies.”
Amelia nods. “I guess so.”
Sister Hunter leans forward. “The church claims that lies are entirely of the devil, but when a person is lying in a hospital bed with a 50 percent chance of survival, sometimes the most merciful and fruitful course of action is to lie.”
Amelia sits back and gives her an uncomfortable look.
Sister Hunter’s eyes light up.
“This order, by the way, is not specifically Catholic. That’s why I don’t use my Catholic name. We have ladies here from every denomination, and some from different faiths entirely. It’s a bold outreach program someone in Rome dreamed up.”
Amelia shifts nervously in her chair. “So what about people with supernatural abilities?”
Sister Hunter smiled. “You’re among friends. You can speak freely.”
Amelia studies her carefully looking for any sign of dark intentions. Since she awoke in the field naked many years ago, she can always zoom in on the thoughts of the people around her, but she hears nothing from Sister Hunter. Sister Hunter’s leading and encouraging banter gives her the impression that she wants her to break the ice, and then she might offer more information.
She takes a gamble, and lays it out – how she awoke in 1928 with no memory – how she hasn’t aged since – how she reads the thoughts of others – how she harms them when they threaten her.
Sister Hunter listens silently and offers no response until Amelia finishes. Then she reclines in her office chair and laces her fingers behind her head.
“How old do you think I am?”
The question surprises Amelia.
“I don’t know, 19 or 20?”
Sister Hunter leans forward. “I’m 54.”
Amelia can’t believe her ears. “Really?”
Sister Hunter nods. “I’ve had to change my name twice. A glamor makes me look this young. Glamors make people see what you want them to see rather than what is actually there.”
Amelia gapes back with her mouth working. “How?”
Sister Hunter stands. “Most people aren’t born with active power. I would wager that at some point, most likely before that morning you woke in the field, you invoked the power of a celestial being. It’s very likely that you’re connected to my order since most modern practitioners don’t have a clue.”
“Practitioners of what?”
Her eyes narrow shrewdly. “We’ll get to that, later.”
“What about the fact that I can remember nothing before the day I woke up in the field?”
Sister Hunter offers her the stern professorial look again.
“I would wager that something traumatic happened to you. You said that
you woke up with bruises all over you and felt violated, and to this day when you feel threatened in that way it triggers you.”
Amelia shrugged. “I suppose.”
Sister Hunter presents a look of sympathy. “We need to find out where your power originates. Once we do, I can help you understand and control it.”
“How?”
Sister Hunter gives her a secretive look. “My order is very old. We’ve dealt with this type of thing for many years.”
Amelia nods. “So what do you require of me?”
Sister Hunter shakes her head. “Nothing. I’ll be in touch as soon as I have news.”
The Polished aluminum doors of the elevator part.
Amelia Long steps out into the parking deck.
Thick concrete beams support the weight of the vehicles above her head, and primed steel posts cemented in from the floor to the ceiling support the structure.
She fishes her car keys from her thick, leather purse. The rapping of her white, platform shoes resound through the cavernous space like gunshots.
Few cars occupy the S2 deck at this hour. From midnight to five, the hospital operates on a skeleton crew.
Rider is beginning to wonder if she’s even human.
While she took her lunch break in the cafeteria, Amelia overheard a woman and a man discussing their five-year-old son who probably wouldn’t outlast the night.
Amelia calmly finished her meal, and then she made her way up to the pediatric ward. She found the child in room 307. She touched him, and Rider felt something swelling inside her bosom. The warmth of it grew until it spider-webbed its way down her right hand, and for a moment, he could swear that the child’s skeleton glowed within him.
The child opened his eyes and smiled at her.
“Who are you?” he said.
Amelia pressed her finger over her lips. “You’re going to be fine. I have to go now.”
It was the strangest thing Rider has ever seen.
Amelia approaches her red pinto, unlocks the door, opens it, and sits in the cold, leather seat. She swings her legs into the car, and shuts the door.
A sudden jostling behind the back of her seat shocks her into motionlessness. Then she feels a hard, sharp blade against her throat. The blade is still warm from the body heat of her attacker.
“Not a peep out of you,” the man behind her whispers. His mouth is so close to her ear that his sulfur breath sticks to her neck like a film.
“Crank the car and drive where I tell you. No tricks.”
“What do you want?”
He cackles as if she’d told him a dirty joke. Then he presses the blade of the knife even harder against her neck.
“I want you to get us the fuck out of this parking deck, bitch, or I’ll do you right here.”
Amelia cranks the car and backs slowly out of the space, and then she creeps through the helix until she reaches the exit.
“Which way am I turning?”
Rider can’t believe how calm she is. She feels no tension in her chest. Based on her lack of emotion she might only be giving a friend a ride home.
“Left,” he hisses.
She wheels the car left risking a glance in the rearview.
He wears a black ski mask over his head with a brown mustache peppered with gray peeking out just below the hem of the mouth opening.
“Keep your goddamn eyes on the road,” he barks. This time he doesn’t whisper and his command carries the same tempo and tenor of a drill sergeant.
Few cars trace the roads at this hour, and the overcast sky blocks out the light of the moon making the night appear that much more ominous.
A hand covered by a black driving glove connected to an arm covered in a navy jumpsuit with a white stripe down the arm points at a shopping center parking lot.
“Turn here,” he hisses again.
Amelia flips her blinker on and guides the Pinto into the deserted parking lot. The man directs her to pull behind the shopping center where she finds a narrow drive between an unpainted cinder block dividing wall and the back of the shopping center.
The driveway dead-ends before a dumpster.
She stops the car.
“Turn it off and get out,” he barks.
She turns the key back toward her and opens the door.
Her emotions are still remarkably quiet. The only sentiment within her is cold, steel resolve.
Rider realizes that Amelia lied to the nun. She has complete control of her abilities, and right now, she means harm.
She climbs out of the car.
Her kidnapper lifts the latch on the back of the driver’s seat and jumps out. He stuffs his filleting knife back in its sheath on his belt, and produces a snub-nosed .38 special from inside his jumpsuit.
The man is big, and he isn’t the least bit nervous.
Judging by his posture, his clear method of execution, and his lack of panic, Rider surmises that he committed this type of crime before.
“You will do exactly what I say,” he growls. “If you scream or fight, I will shoot you in the head.”
Amelia, who stands with her back to the dumpster, now gazes at him like a student at a professor.
“Take everything off – even your shoes, and bend over the hood of your car.”
Amelia reaches out with her mind, and she strikes a mine of repulsive images of mutilated women and twisted emotions. She pulls back, revolted.
“And if I refuse?” she says. Her speech is matter-of-fact and dispassionate.
The man cocks his pistol.
She laughs bitterly.
“We’re in the middle of Boston. If you fire that gun, someone’s going to hear and call the police.”
The man brandishes a baleful grin made more sinister by the ski mask.
“And I won’t be anywhere close when they get here.”
Amelia sighs as if the man is merely inconveniencing her. “You don’t know who I am or what’s about to happen to you. Leave now, and the police won’t be able to identify you when I call them.”
The man un-cocks the gun and stuffs it back inside his jumpsuit. He unsheathes the knife and charges her – slamming her back into the dumpster.
The man rips at her white uniform shirt. She cocks her head sideways and stares at him much like a person watching an ant that’s trying to steal morsels of her picnic.
His back arches violently. He shrieks in terrible anguish and fear.
He claws and pounds with his fist at the small of his back as if he’s having the mother of all muscle spasms.
His knife clatters uselessly to the concrete pavement.
“I warned you,” she says. “And now you’re going to bend over backwards to make this up to me and all of the other women you’ve defiled.”
Images flood Amelia’s mind.
The trauma that created the predator. The subsequent atrocities he perpetrated on others.
But suddenly, the man sits in the very chair she occupied this morning gaping at Sister Ruth Hunter.
“We know what you do, Patrick,” Sister Hunter says in her musical and youthful voice.
A pang of terror shoots through Patrick’s chest. He takes a deep breath and steadies himself.
“Whatever.”
She smiles. “We know about all of the women you’ve assaulted and raped. We know that it won’t be long before you kill one of them, and we know that the police have been looking for you for a very long time. In fact, they’re closing in.”
Patrick’s mouth goes dry, and his hands shake.
“What do you want?” he grumbles.
Sister Hunter sits back in her chair and laces her fingers behind her head – the same gesture of control that she presented earlier in the day when Amelia sat across from her.
“To help you, of course.”
He laughs at her, and she smiles back at him – the very same disarming smile she presented Amelia.
“Not so that you can continue to get away with rape, but to free you from these im
pulses that continue to kill your soul.”
He stops laughing and glares at her. “It occurs to me that you are the only person in this building right now. I could just have a little fun....”
Sister Hunter replaces her smile with a defiant, hateful glower.
“I’m not threatened, and exactly how far do you think you would get before the police catch up to you?”
The grin falls off Patrick’s face.
“I can make all of this go away. The police won’t even look for you anymore.”
“And how are you gonna do that, bitch?”
Sister Hunter’s face softens. “My order is unlike any other group of nuns you’ll ever meet. We can make any kind of problem you might have disappear, and we can also make the nightmares stop.”
“You’re a quack.”
She shakes her head. “I can make you forget about all the times your dear mother burned you with a cigarette, or all the times she forced you to watch while she abused your brother.”
He stands. “You’re sick, sister. Get yourself some help.”
She reaches in her middle desk drawer and takes out a file folder – sitting it on the smooth surface of the metal desk.
“Would you like to see what the police have on you?”
He stares at the folder for a long moment. Part of him wants to look inside, but he’s not about to admit anything.
He looks at her and grins. “The police don’t have anything on me, because I’ve done nothing.”
Her eyes narrow to slits. “Didn’t you?”
He turns for the door.
“I have a prediction for you, Patrick,” she says.
He gives her a tired look.
“You’re a fortune-teller now?”
She offers a Mona Lisa smile. “If you walk out that door, you’ll be arrested in less than two weeks. In a year, state of Massachusetts will convict you of multiple rapes. Before you see two more birthdays, your prison guards will find you dead in the showers with a shiv still sticking out of your neck.”
He reaches for the doorknob.
A force more powerful than anything he’s ever encountered rips his hand from the door, spins him around, pulls him across the room, and shoves him down in the chair.
Sister Hunter gives him a conciliatory look.
