"At midnight we shall begin penance and silence. Two hours of private prayer will be followed by a return to your quarters. At five, we will again convene for Mass, followed by breakfast. You shall each go about your tasks in silence. The gates will be locked. No one is allowed onto the grounds and no one shall leave. If anyone speaks before I lift this rigorous rite of prayer and cleansing, a severe penance will be enforced." He turned on his heel, sandal squeaking against the stone, and strode down the center aisle, the gray folds of his raw wool robe swirling outward, the white cape slightly lifting up behind his shoulders. He said under his breath, "Silence, prayer, work, abstinence, austerity, seclusion."
Twenty minutes remained wherein brothers could speak, but as the men filed out, no one did.
Once out of the chapel, Brother Frank motioned to Brother Prescott.
Whispering, Brother Prescott intoned, "Runs a tight ship, our Brother Handle."
"Our tight ship has sprung a leak," Brother Frank whispered back, as both men smiled at the double entendre.
10
I knew I shouldn't have listened to you." Susan mournfully looked out the window of Harry's 1978 Ford F-l50.
Although in four-wheel drive with snow tires, the truck, even in second gear, struggled for traction on the steep climb up Afton Mountain, the fog increasing in density with each ten feet of altitude.
"You always say that." Harry peered ahead, scanning for red taillights.
Mrs. Murphy and Pewter watched the road intently. Tucker sat on Susan's lap.
"Pea soup."
"The mountain wears its mantle of fog all too often." Harry remembered the time a pileup of over thirty cars closed down Interstate 64.
She kept to Route 250. She could swing onto it easily from Crozet. Since it was a two-lane highway, the opportunities to speed remained limited to whatever vehicle chugged along in front of you. At least, that's what she told herself as she kept her foot steadily on the accelerator, her hands moving the steering wheel in the direction of the skid, then back straight again.
"I wish we'd never seen those tears."
"Will you stop being morose? We're almost there. Relax." She coasted under the overpass, turned south onto the Skyline Drive. The fog was almost impenetrable. The Skyline Drive had been plowed out. Often, when weather became treacherous, the Skyline Drive shut down, since far too many people thought they could drive in ice and snow but events proved otherwise. The drop from sections of this extraordinary roadway sheared away at hundreds of feet. The height at the turn onto the Skyline Drive from Afton Mountain was about 1,800 feet.
Harry couldn't see a thing as she passed the Inn at Afton Mountain, its lights diffused to yellow circles in the gray fog. She missed the mobile unit from Channel 29, but they couldn't see her, either. Had they been outside the unit, they would have heard the deep rumble of the big eight-cylinder engine.
She checked her speedometer. The monastery was just a half mile from the inn.
"The icicles are blue." Susan noted the ice covering the rock outcroppings. "True ice blue." She folded her hands on Tucker's back. "I really am crazy to listen to you."
"Hey, takes your mind off your troubles." Harry's concentration was intense, although it did flit through her mind that she had not told her best friend of Fair's latest proposal and deadline.
Seemingly out of nowhere, the great iron gates loomed. Harry wisely did not hit the brakes but slowly applied pressure. The truck skidded slightly to the left, toward the drop side of the road. Susan gasped, reaching for the Jesus strap hanging over the window of the passenger door. Harry calmly corrected, slowly stopping.
She got out as Susan, grumbling, also stepped into the snow, a foot deep now.
"Dammit!" Susan stomped her feet, her Montrail boots leaving a distinct tread print.
"Calm down, Susan. God, you're edgy these days." Harry regretted this the second it escaped her lips. "Sorry. Really. I would be, too." She reasoned that in Susan's current state she really ought not to discuss Fair.
Tucker and the two cats jumped into the snow. Each time Mrs. Murphy and Pewter sank in over their heads, they'd fight their way back up, pyramids of snow between their ears. They resembled kitty coolies. Tucker, who was larger, had an easier time of it.
The cats squeezed through the iron gate. The humans remained on the other side. Tucker looked for a way in, since she was too big to squeeze through the bars.
"Girls, don't go far," Harry admonished them.
"We won't," they lied, plowing through the snow.
"If we had a brain in our head we'd have figured out that the brothers would circle the wagons. I don't blame them. It's all rather bizarre."
"Someone else has been here. Three someone elses." Harry pointed to tracks already filling with snow as another squall descended upon them.
"Hmm." Susan knelt down to inspect the frozen imprint of a boot tread in the compressed snow. "Men or women with big feet."
"We know it wasn't the brothers. They wear sandals despite the weather."
"It doesn't mean squat, Harry. There's nothing wrong with people coming up here. We did. The gates are usually open."
"Yeah, but the news about the statue—" Harry stopped talking mid-sentence as she witnessed her two feline friends disappearing in snow, reemerging, throwing snow everywhere. When the cats would hit a smooth, windblown patch where they didn't sink in, they'd chase each other.
"Can you imagine feeling such joy?" Susan looked at the cats with envy.
"Yes."
Tucker wormed her way under the fence, digging out snow. She finally made it and tore after the cats. "I'll get you."
Both cats puffed up, standing sideways. "Die, dog!" They spit.
Tucker roared past them, a spray of snow splashing both cats in the face. Their whiskers drooped a bit with the debris.
They shook themselves to run after Tucker, though it was harder for them because of the varying snow depths. They persevered.
"Tucker! Mrs. Murphy! Pewter!" Harry called in vain.
"Don't even think about it." Susan put her hand on Harry's forearm, the fabric of her parka crinkling.
"I won't." Harry was considering climbing the fence.
The animals gleefully frolicked. They enjoyed many opportunities to play at home, but Harry's discomfort added to the moment. They paused, hearing buzzards lift up to circle overhead. As it was deer season, a few irresponsible hunters had left carcasses. Most dressed the deer where they dropped. Deer season was feast time for vultures.
Before they knew it, the animals came upon the statue, snow swirling about her, frozen blood on her cheeks. They stopped in their tracks.
There, kneeling in the snow, hands clasped in prayer and resting on the boulder base, no gloves, hood over his head, was one of the brothers.
"Shh," Tucker respectfully ordered the cats.
Mrs. Murphy lifted her nose, followed by Tucker, then Pewter. In the deep cold, the mercury hung at eighteen degrees Fahrenheit; at this altitude, they couldn't smell a thing. That was the problem. A live human at normal body temperature would emanate scent.
The three cautiously crept forward. Tucker sniffed the back of the thick gray robe, white with snow, as white as the wool mantle worn with the robes.
Mrs. Murphy circled around, as did Pewter. Both cats stiffened, jumping back.
The brother's eye sockets were filled with snow. Snow had collected at his neckline, covering halfway up his face. His face, though, remained uplifted to that of the Blessed Virgin Mother, who looked down, her own face lined with snow.
"He's frozen stiff!" Pewter finally could breathe. "A human frozen fish stick!"
Mrs. Murphy stepped forward boldly as Tucker came around. "I can't make out his features."
"Even if you could, we might not know him. There are many of the brothers we don't see," Tucker spoke quietly. "The ones who work in the shops and talk to us are hand picked."