Runaway Nun (Misbegotten) by Caesar Voghan Read Free Book Online Page A

Monsignor,”
Hurlin replied. “The sins that beset one’s soul are not another soul’s
struggle. God doesn’t give us more than we can bear—”
    “Save your sermons for your altar
boys, Bishop. So, are you keeping the Holy Father on the straight and narrow
these days?”
    “Oh, his Holiness is—thank
God for His anointment! May the Holy Father’s name be blessed on Earth as it is
in Heaven. Amen.”
    “His name shall be called Blessed of the Almighty, Patron of the Obese,” Elano said.
    Hurlin rolled his eyes and crossed himself hurriedly. Together they passed between the
two Swiss guards who drew their lances in and snapped at attention. Elano
returned the salute with a nod and walked through the gateway.
    “Mercy, Monsignor, mercy,” Hurlin
mumbled as he trailed Elano inside the building.
    “Stop begging. Mercy’s in short
supply these days, Bishop,” Elano said. “You of all people should know better.”
    The footsteps of the two men
echoed from the dark concourse.

8
    Holding hands, scores of boys and girls dressed in the
sackcloth uniforms of the Orphanages of the Sacred Heart climbed down from the
school bus parked at the entrance of the Pilgrim Center. Made out of red bricks
neatly stacked around a skeleton of concrete beams and truces, the flat-roof one-story
building sat on the very edge of the crater. All the way in the back, a lookout
deck—wooden planks atop a steel frame—extended for thirty yards over
the precipice of the giant drop.
    The children gathered in front of
the Center’s closed doors. Shaking the numbness away from their stiff bodies,
they proceeded to scuffle, skip around, and pull innocent pranks at one
another’s expense. The group of accompanying Carmelite nuns tried to quiet them
down, while helping them form two lines. The children kept on chatting
excitedly, tugging at each other, jostling to be first in line. The nuns’
patience was endless, the grip on the children’s shoulders firm.
    A thunder rumbled high in the sky
and all eyes turned toward the blanket of contorted, dirty-grey clouds rolling
in from the Atlantic. Like a runaway ghost, a wind gust rustled as it twirled
around the redbrick building, caressed the children’s faces, then descended with a sinister shriek into the darkened crevice.
    The doors finally opened.
    Inside
the Center, the children gathered around Sister Deborah, a high-strung nun with
parchment-like skin stretched tightly over a face soaked in contrition save for
a pair of frigid eyes. She looked frozen at an age that was deemed to remain a
forever mystery, just like the truths of the faith she held so dear to her
heart. As the Prioress who ran the Center, Sister Deborah always took it upon
herself to lead the first guided tour of the day—a duty she’d performed
for the past ten years with the unquestionable resignation of a holy penance.
Hands folded on top of each other over her heart, a rosary wrapped around her
mummified fingers, she waited until the children’s curious murmuring came to an
end. Once she had their attention, she pointed toward an exhibit with a dozen
floor-to-ceiling posters displaying the skyline of Manhattan before the Blessed
Collision, the long string of skyscrapers aiming for the sky like a mishmash of
uneven volume bars on the display of a musical console.
    “They said in their hearts, ‘Let
us ascend to the Most High, let us build towers that will reach the
Unreachable, let us make a name for ourselves high in the heavens,’” Sister
Deborah recited in one breath. There was no intonation in her voice—the
sacred quote contained a simple statement of fact, profound and definitive, and
sinful lips needed not waste time embellishing it. Her hand remained aimed at
the posters like a prosecutor pointing at a culprit soon to be entrusted into
the merciful care of the hangman.
    Enthralled at the sight of the
soaring buildings of the World Before, the children kept panning their prying
eyes from one jagged skyrise