Sister Agnes bowed her head and gestured for them to rise.
Frank stood. Rick followed, his stare lingering on the old woman for a second longer. She did not return the look. Her face had lifted to the crucifix behind them, unmoving, unblinking, as if weighed by a much older, heavier sorrow.
(2:37 p.m.)
Rick felt the temperature drop as they followed Sister Agnes deeper into the convent’s interior. The stone walls grew narrower, the ceiling lower, as if the architecture itself conspired to guard its secrets. Beyond a high archway, a pair of nuns crossed a cloister walk, one carrying a basket of folded linen,the other cradling a stack of hymnals against her chest. Neither acknowledged them.
Further along, another Sister paused at a niche shrine, fingers moving silently over a string of rosary beads. The faint scent of beeswax wafted from a nearby alcove. Somewhere, a bell chimed, soft and hollow, more heartbeat than summons. Rick caught fragments of murmured conversation behind closed doors, the rustle of fabric, the low squeak of a cart’s wheels—a life marked in hours of devotion.
Sister Agnes led them around a final corner and stopped before a set of open double doors. Light spilled out from within, muted and weak. She turned to them, her expression obscured beneath her veil. “Sister Irene is inside,” she said.
Without waiting for a reply, she dipped her head and walked away, her footsteps fading into the hush.
Rick exchanged a glance with Frank, then stepped into the chapel.
The space opened up into a vaulted chamber washed in somber daylight. Slender windows lined the walls. Arched beams curved high above in dark wood, framing the ceiling like the veins of a leaf. From the center hung an iron chandelier, its dark spires shaped like a crown, suspended in stillness. Simple pews flanked the central nave, leading to a giant wooden cross at the far wall.
Rick’s gaze swept the room, instinctively noting exits, blind corners, aisles, and transepts, before his attention settled on the solitary figure near the apse. She moved slowly, broom in hand, her habit whispering around her ankles. Every motion was precise, almost ritual. There was something delicate and spectral about her, like a figure drawn in charcoal, just on the verge of being erased.
“Sister Irene?” he called, striding up the aisle.
She turned, startled, the broom pausing mid-sweep. Her eyes were wide and uncertain, a soft brown dulled by age and memory. “Yes?” she said, her voice thin.
Rick wasn’t sure what he’d expected—some withdrawn elder, cloistered for decades, sunken into silence. But the woman in front of him looked barely older than fifty, her spine straight, her face clear. “I’m Detective Slade. This is Detective Burton. We were told you might’ve known a woman named Lily Costa. She lived here some years ago under the name Sister Mary.”
At that, her expression changed; an inward folding, as if something had struck her just beneath the sternum. She lowered the broom. “Yes,” she said, more softly. “I knew her.”
“Would you be willing to talk to us?” Frank asked. “Anything you can remember would help.”
Sister Irene hesitated. Her fingers tightened around the broom handle. “I… I’m not sure I should. The Reverend Mother wouldn’t want us to dwell on the past. We’re meant to pray for the souls of the departed, not discuss their pain like gossip.”
“This isn’t gossip,” Rick said, stepping closer, his stature dwarfing the nun. “This is an investigation. The past matters. And so does the truth.”
She met his gaze, her eyes searching his, glinting with the weight of memory. “Very well,” she said after a moment, setting her broom aside. “Come with me.”
The nun led them through a narrow side door. The hallway beyond was dim and hushed, lined with faded frescoes and worn stone, the scent of old incense and damp plaster thick in the air. They emerged into a cloistered courtyard—a rectangle of quiet enclosed by arcades of weathered columns. Overhead, the sky had turned pewter-gray, clouds swollen with unshed rain. Thunder murmured in the distance, more vibration than sound. The light filtering past the arches was leaden, muting even the plants below.
The garden had the look of a place long neglected. Thorned brambles spilled over broken cobble paths, tangling with knee-high weeds. Dry lavender stalks sagged under the mats of ivy gone wild. In the corners, four trees reached with brittle limbs toward the sky, their leaves turned into molten gold. At the center, a fountain lay cracked and moss-choked, its basin dry. A crow rasped out a call somewhere nearby. Silence returned, deeper than before.
Sister Irene moved to the low wall along the arcade, smoothed her habit, and sat, her hands folded neatly in her lap. Rick and Frank joined her, settling in. The silence stretched. A breeze stirred the overgrown square, rustling the weeds and lifting the hem of Irene’s robe.
“It’s been so long,” she said at last, words soft as if reluctant to wake the past. “But I remember everything, clear as glass.” Her stare remained fixed on the empty fountain, distant. Something about her quietude made the courtyard feel more like a ruin than a refuge.
“Please,” Frank said gently. “Tell us what you know.”
“She was only nineteen when they brought her here,” Irene began. “They put her in my cell, said we’d be roommates.” She paused. “She was so beautiful. Raven-haired and fair-skinned, with eyes like rivers after the storm. But she was broken. She didn’t speak. Not for weeks. She only sat on the edge of the bed and stared out the window.”
“Go on,” Rick prompted.
“I tried to be patient. I prayed with her. Brought her food. Folded her laundry when she wouldn’t move. And slowly… slowly, she began to come back to herself. She started speaking again. Called me ‘Reenie,’ sometimes.” A faint smile touched her lips before vanishing. “That’s when she told me what had happened. Or what she believed had happened.”
Rick leaned forward. “What did she say?”
“She said she’d been raped,” Irene said. Her voice had dropped, grown flat. “But not by a man. By ademon.”
The word hung between them, absurd and terrible.
“She said he came to her one night. That he seemed like a man at first, but he wasn’t. That he knew her thoughts. Spoke without speaking. Smelled of smoke and burning roses. She said she fought him, but he subdued her and did… unspeakable things.” Her voice caught. “I didn’t believe her. Not even when she showed me the marks and bruises on her body. None of us did. We thought she was using metaphors to explain the horror of what she went through. It’s not uncommon, you know. Trauma sometimes speaks in symbols.”
