San Juan Bautista, California
"You will, of course, stay at my house," said Sister Mary-Agnes as she led her
visitors through the mission's gardens. "I have a spare bedroom, where visiting sisters
frequently stay, and if your Mr. Boyle doesn't mind... there's a folding couch in the
living room."
"We don't wish to impose, Sister," said Kym. "We had planned on staying in
Hollister... I understand it's not far."
"Nonsense... I insist," said the nun, "...and it's Aggie. She pulled off her navy
blue Loyola sweatshirt and flipped it around her shoulders so the lettering wouldn't
show. "Father doesn't approve," she commented. "He went to Notre Dame."
"We'd be delighted, Aggie," said Derek.
"Oh, good," Mary-Agnes said, "having guests is my excuse to cook, and I do
so love to cook... but it's such a waste to do it for one. I'll just be a moment," she
continued, "I must tell the padre that I'm taking you over to the Zarzuela house."
Derek and Kym watched the rotund, not-quite-five-foot-tall sister hurry off
toward the priest's private quarters.
"Derek," whispered Kym, "why did you say we'd stay with her? I went to St.
Veronica's School for Girls. Nuns make me nervous." She shuddered at the memory
of Sister Marie-Thérèse. "Besides, I was looking forward to this evening."
"Dear, nuns are people... just like you and me," replied her husband. "Of course,
I do have a different perspective... my sister's one. Besides, it's always prudent to stay
near the scene of an investigation, and I'm sure we'll manage to think of someplace
to pass the evening."
A moment later the sister rejoined them. "Let's cut through the church,"she said,
directing them toward the side door. Once inside, she led them straight across the
arcaded side aisle into the nave. Their footsteps echoed in the empty church. "The
reredos up there," she said, cocking her thumb at the wall behind the altar, "was
painted by the first American settler in California, a Bostonian like myself. "He did the
altar, too. In fact, the girl I told Ingrid about is one of his descendants," she added.
"You know," she said, continuing her monologue, as they walked toward the front
door. "It's such a little detail, but I must show you... it's my favorite thing about the
whole mission. Look."Aggie stopped to point at the floor. "See the paw prints in the
tiles... almost one hundred seventy years ago these tiles were made here, then left
outside to dry... and God's creatures decorated them."
Kym stooped down to look. There were, indeed, paw prints of some long ago
cat and, perhaps, a squirrel and a bird. Such a marvelous way of looking at life.
Somehow, this mission church smelled very different from the one in which she had
been married. Mission Dolores, before the flowers, had smelled of incense and mildew.
This church smelled of dust and hay and pepper trees. "How many missions are
there?" she asked as they continued down the nave.
"Twenty-one, supposedly one day's walk apart," said Derek. "They are all
different... some are the original structures like this one and Mission Dolores, others
are reconstructions. Some have reverted to the Church, others are state or locally
operated... one serves as the chapel for UC Santa Clara."
"I had no idea," said Kym. "In the East you always think of California as being
trendy and transient."
"You seem to know a lot about the missions, Dr. Rayne," said Sister Mary-Agnes. "Somehow, I'm not surprised."
"Derek, please," he corrected. "I have many unrelated interests."
Kym smiled... my husband the Snake.
"Ingrid mentioned that you did," the nun said, pulling open one of the great oak
doors. "She's very proud of her little brother." She held her hand over her eyes as she
led her guests from the shade of the arcade. Blinding sunlight bounced from the white
plastered facade and its double-tiered campanario, its bell tower, and reflected back
into their eyes from the bright, hard-packed ground in front.
"Here's something else that might interest you," she said, leading them to the
edge of a twelve foot escarpment overlooking the brown San Benito Valley. "Down
there is one of the few remaining portions of the original El Camino Real." She pointed
to the narrow, dirt trail directly below. "...the King's Highway," she added, "that
connected the mission chain, but... this is also the San Andreas fault."
"You mean the thing everyone says will cause 'the Big One'?" Kym asked
incredulously.
"Yes, dear," said Mary-Agnes. "We live right on the monster. We've been very
lucky... we lost the outer walls in 1906, but the inner walls remained standing. Not bad
for having the tallest nave in the chain... the buttresses have done their jobs and God
watches over us. Every now and again we have some plaster to repair and some tiles
to replace, but so far, He's taken care of us."
"We do too, dear," said Derek with a smile, "if that's of any comfort."
Recalling her terror at the quaking of a few months before, Kym was amazed
at Californians' nonchalance about the very real possibility of an apocalypse in their
own backyard.
"The Zarzuela house, where I think all of this nasty business started, is just over
there," Sister Mary-Agnes indicated with a nod of her head. Her bobbed, sienna-
colored hair flamed red in the late afternoon sun. She led Derek and Kym along the
edge of the fault to the opposite side of the grassy, old-style, Spanish plaza, what in
New England might have been called a "common."
"The first floor is adobe underneath the clapboard siding," she explained as they
stepped onto the long wooden veranda. "It was originally the dormitory for the
mission's Indian girls. Later, after the Mexican government secularized the missions
in 1835, the Zarzuela family, who held a fairly large land grant here, purchased it for
their home in town. They added the upper floor with its lead roof, the porch, and the
veranda."
"Do they still own it?" asked Kym, cupping her hands to peek in one of the
french doors. Derek, hands behind his back, paced the length of the porch and back.
"No," said the sister. "It's been a part of the historical park for a number of
years, but the family still gathers here after their important church functions, which
take place across the way at the mission... christenings, quinceañeras, weddings. In
fact, Diana Kelly... the girl... was last in the house for her own quinceañera. It was
about a week later that she began having problems."
"Quinceañera? Her fifteenth birthday?" Derek asked.
"Yes," Sister Aggie explained. "It's similar to a sweet sixteen party, which the
Anglo branches sometimes have instead, but it has the church service connected with
it. Diana is also a descendant of the Zarzuelas. If the family still lives around here and
the girl wishes, they have the church service in the mission and the party in the gardens
behind the house." The nun's Boston origin betrayed itself with the word, "gaaarden."
"Let me give you the guided tour. Then I'll call the family and see if they can bring
Diana tomorrow."
* * *
Throughout their tour of the house and gardens, Derek left himself open to
psychic impressions, but there was nothing. "Kym, schatje," he said finally, "have you
felt anything."
"No," said Kym. Though inexperienced at manipulating her "gift," Kym usually
sensed the aura of her surroundings with ease. "Nothing... it's just an old house with
old Victorian furniture and bric-a-brac. What I feel is a museum."
"Precisely," said her husband, walking over to the upright piano that sat in the
corner near the fireplace. He pecked on a few keys. "It's in tune," he said with
surprise.
"Yes," said Aggie. "The family always has it tuned before an occasion, so it
would have been attended to just before Diana's party."
"May I?" asked Derek, thinking that if he could open himself to the music,
something more might creep in as well. Unfortunately, the method usually worked
when he didn't want it to, rather than on command.
"Of course, you may," said the nun.
Derek sat down on the small, round piano stool and began to play whatever
came into the void of his mind. His wife watched as his eyes became distant and his
fingers moved without thought. Neither she nor the sister had heard the melody before,
but it had a Spanish flavor of something old and sad.
"He plays well," commented Aggie.
Kym nodded. Suddenly, her husband stopped and spun around on the stool to
look a glass case hanging above the fireplace.
"What's that?" he asked the sister. He rose and stepped over to take a better
look at what seemed to be a wreath made of delicate black lace.
"Oh," replied Mary-Agnes, "It's the one thing here the family still owns. It's a
wreath made of human hair."
"Of hair?" repeated Kym. "Whose hair?"
Aggie explained, "It's always been common to keep a lock of a loved one's hair
as a memento, but in Victorian times the custom reached its zenith. They would take
the hair of a loved one, usually deceased, and weave it into jewelry, like rings or
bracelets. This family took it a step farther... Californio girls usually allowed their hair
to grow almost to the floor, then they would elaborately dress it with tortoise shell or
sandalwood combs and hairpins...."
Kym's thoughts flitted to Christina Rayne's mother-of-pearl comb that she had
worn at her wedding.
"I'm sure this wreath started out as a ring," the sister continued, "or, perhaps,
a bracelet, but it kept growing. Somewhere along the line, it became a family custom
that a girl, as part of her quinceañera, should donate a lock of hair to be woven into the
wreath."
"Did Diana Kelly do this?" Derek asked abruptly.
"I suppose so," replied the sister.
< < + > >
Jebel al-Taj Combat Ring
"Faruz! No!" cried Mahmud as he wearily fended off yet another savage blow
from his friend. "This is supposed to be practice."
The combat session had disintegrated to the two boys surrounded by a ring of
jeering youths. Inside the circle, which ebbed and flowed with the fight, was the
Commandant, who ferociously taunted both.
Faruz no longer saw the tall, thin boy he had raced through the date grove a few
days before. He saw only through a veil of red an opponent, an enemy, to be crushed.
He no longer heard the croaking, changing voice that had made him laugh, but only the
roar of blood in his own ears.
The Commandant's excitement grew with each successful blow. His muscles
spasmed with joy at the rage he sensed pouring from the stockier youth. Give him an
army of boys such as this Faruz, who would, in ecstasy, slay enemy, friend, innocent,
or self without hesitation... an army of boys, whose consciences, whose very souls,
could be flicked off as easily as the safety on a AK-47.
Mahmud was fading... he knew it was nearly over. His nose had been popped
like a ripe date. Teeth were gone, leaving fleshy holes of pain in his gums and a
strange, salty dryness in his throat. Blood from a cut on his brow darkened his vision
and agony from a broken rib cut any breath to a mere gasp. He had been unable from
the very beginning to block the blows... his lankiness had made him slower and weaker
than his bullish friend. Now, there was nothing left....
The mob hushed when it heard the sickening, thrilling pop of a breaking joint.
Faruz had landed a kick squarely on Mahmud's right knee. The boy screamed as he
collapsed into the blistering sand. A foot pressed on the back of his head, forcing his
face into the grit. It filled his nose, his mouth, his eyes, but to the last he could hear the
Commandant's euphoric breathing next to his ear. Even in the last seconds of
awareness, it seemed to Mahmud's suffocating brain that monster was inhaling his
terror and pain the way a lover inhaled the scent of his beloved. The last thing he knew
was the feel of that demon's breath on his ear.
< < + > >
San Juan Bautista
After dinner Derek had taken Major Boyle, who had arrived just before sunset,
to the Zarzuela house to show him around and help him install the equipment, which
Johnny had brought in the van from San Francisco. Since Aggie believed that the
house had something to do with Diana Kelly's problems, Derek had determined that
they should set up sensors to see if there were any abnormal energy readings or heat
fluctuations... to rule out a haunting or other similar phenomena.
Kym had decided that the mannerly thing to do was to stay and help their
hostess clean up. Aggie had, indeed, cooked a splendid supper of chicken sauterne
with glazed carrots and an apple cobbler for dessert. Absolutely stuffed and drying the
last of the dinner dishes, Kym leaned against the kitchen counter.
"I met Ingrid at our wedding," she said casually, while Sister Mary-Agnes
opened a can of cat food for HoneyFitz, her golden eyed marmalade tabby, whom she
had named after JFK's grandfather, John F. Fitzgerald, the godfather of Boston
politics. "But I never really got to speak with her," Kym confided. "I know there's no
rift in the family. She seems on good terms with both Derek and their mother. It was
so strange... she arrived just before the ceremony and returned to Sonoma immediately
following. I don't understand.... Was it me?"
"No, Kym, dear," said Aggie, who realized how important it was to this young
woman that her husband's family like and accept her. "It's just her way. She's been
in the cloister so long, I imagine she's a bit uncomfortable on the outside."
"You were close friends... in this day and age, why would anyone choose to
bury herself in the cloister."
Personally, Kymberlee Rayne could not imagine a life locked up in one place,
whether cloister or prison made little difference. She loved to travel... to see and learn.
She had to chuckle at the memory of her father, with a twinkle in his eye, correcting
his "bad" little girl with the admonition, "If you don't straighten up and fly right, Miss,
I'll pack you off to Switzerland to live with the nuns." Nine times out of then it had
worked... "Kymberlee the little devil" had become "Kymberlee the little angel"... for
a while.
"Kitty... kitty... kitty," Aggie called, setting the small dish on the floor. "Din-din,
Fitzy.... What she said was that she felt a call to devote her life to prayer and the
contemplation of Our Lord's will," the sister explained as she straightened. "What I
sensed was that it had more to do with the Legacy, and with Derek."
The mention of the secret society took Kym by complete surprise. The shock
must have flashed across her face.
"Oh," said Mary-Agnes, reading the hesitancy in her guest's eyes, "I know
about the Legacy. My grandfather was a member. It was what drew Ingrid and I
together. I also know something of your own family," she continued. "I wouldn't be
speaking of this if I didn't guess at your situation... am I correct in assuming that you
have a "gift," and that your father and the Legacy paired you with Derek?"
Nodding, but unable to look at the little nun, Kym twisted and untwisted her
striped dish towel. Did Aggie sense something? Yes... the Legacy had paired them, but
the Legacy had not counted upon them falling in love. The Legacy had sought to give
Derek Rayne a companion, a help-mate, and a mother for his children. What they had
given him instead was someone who had come to cherish him with her whole being.
Her consuming love for her husband was becoming the entirety of her existence. Her
face reddened at the thought.
"Ingrid has the 'Sight'... just like Derek," Aggie explained as she wiped off the
stove, then turned to the tiles of the kitchen counter. "Perhaps, hers is stronger in some
ways." Ingrid's friend paused to sort her thoughts, then resumed her observations.
"She once told me that as children she and Derek were so close that often there was
no need to speak... they just knew. I think that she ultimately found it necessary to
escape that, especially once he chose to accept his father's legacy. You know," she
added, "she chose the veil less than a month after Derek chose the Legacy.
"I'm not sure I should mention this, because I'm not certain I quite understand
what she meant... it seemed to me that she had reversed her meaning... that maybe she
was thinking in Dutch and had mistranslated... but Ingrid confided in me once that the
entire purpose of her life was to pray for her brother, and so pray for the world."
