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Our white shepherdon the driveway, as I had last seen him from my third-floor , turned his head to look at me as I descended the broad front steps His stare was clear and blue, with none of the eerie eyeshine coht

Without benefit of stars or moon, most of the expansive yard receded into murk If a bodach lurked out there, I could not see it

“Boo, where’s it gone?” I whispered

He didn’t answer My life is strange but not so strange that it includes talking canines

With wary purpose, however, the dog moved off the driveway, onto the yard He headed east, past the formidable abbey, which appears alreat ht are the mortar joints between its stones

No wind ruffled the night, and darkness hung with folded wings

Seared brown by winter, the trareater stealth than I could e

Feeling watched, I looked up at the s, but I didn’t see anyone, no light other than the faint flicker of the candle in h a dark pane

I had rushed out of the guest earing blue jeans and a T-shirt December stropped its teeth on my bare arms

We proceeded eastward alongside the church, which is part of the abbey, not a separate building

A sanctuary lalows perpetually, but it isn’t sufficient to fire the colorful stained glass Throughafter , that dile sullen eye of so in a bloody mood

Having led , Boo turned south, past the back of the church We continued to the wing of the abbey that, on the first floor, contains the novitiate

Not yet having taken their vows, the novices slept here Of the five ere currently taking instruction, I liked and trusted four

Suddenly Boo abandoned his cautious pace He ran due east, away from the abbey, and I pursued him

As the yard relented to the untarass lashed my knees Soon the first heavy snoould compact these tall dry blades

For a few hundred feet, the land sloped gently before leveling off, whereupon the knee-high grass becaloom rose St Bartholomew’s School

In part the word school is a euphemism These students are unwanted elsewhere, and the school is also their home, perhaps the only one that some of them will ever have

This is the original abbey, internally remodeled but still an impressive pile of stone The structure also houses the convent in which reside the nuns who teach the students and care for them

Behind the forainst the stor blind pathways that led far into the lonely dark

Evidently tracking the bodach, the dog went up the broad steps to the front door of the school, and through

Few doors in the abbey are ever locked But for the protection of the students, the school is routinely secured

Only the abbot, the mother superior, and I possess a universal key that allows aduest before me has been entrusted with such access

I take no pride in their trust It is a burden In my pocket, the simple key sometimes feels like an iron fate drawn to a lodestone deep in the earth

The key allows me quickly to seek Brother Constantine, the deadof bells in one of the towers or with some other kind of cacophony elsewhere

In Pico Mundo, the desert town in which I had lived for most of er But here we have just Brother Constantine, who is no less disturbing than all of Pico Mundo’s dead cohost but one too many

With a bodach on the prowl, Brother Constantine was the least of my worries

Shivering, I usedinto the school

Two night-lights staved off total glooeested a hotel lobby

I hurried past the un door into a corridor lighted by an ens

On this ground floor were the classrooms, the rehabilitation clinic, the infir roo breakfast Silence ruled these spaces, as it would for hours yet

I cli forHe re, and he did not grin in greeting

Two long and two short hallways for the student quarters The residents roomed in pairs

At the southeast and northwest junctions of the corridors were nurses’ stations, both of which I could see when I ca

At the northwest station, a nun sat at the counter, reading From this distance, I could not identify her

Besides, her face was half concealed by a wimple The

se are not modern nuns who dress like meter maids These sisters wear old-style habits that can make them seem as formidable as warriors in armor

The southeast station was deserted The nun on dutyto one of her charges

When Boo padded away to the right, heading southeast, I folloithout calling to the reading nun By the tiht

Many of the sisters have nursing degrees, but they strive to make the second floor feel more like a cozy dormitory than like a hospital With Christarlands of fake evergreen boughs and festooned with genuine tinsel

In respect of the sleeping students, the lights had been dilimmered only here and there, and mostly darkled into tremulous shadows

The doors of some student rooms were closed, others ajar They featured not just numbers but also names

Halfway between the stairwell and the nurses’ station, Boo paused at Room 32, where the door was not fully closed On block-lettered plaques were the names ANNAMARIE and JUSTINE

This tih to Boo to see that indeed his hackles were raised

The dog passed inside, but propriety ht to have asked a nun to accompany me into these students’ quarters

But I wanted to avoid having to explain bodachs to her More i overheard by one of thoseabout them

Officially, only one person at the abbey and one at the convent know about ift rather than a curse Sister Angela, the mother superior, shares my secret, as does Father Bernard, the abbot

Courtesy had required that they fully understand the troubled young uest

To assure Sister Angela and Abbot Bernard that I was neither a fraud nor a fool, Wyatt Porter, the chief of police in Pico Mundo, my hometown, shared with them the details of some murder cases hich I had assisted him

Likewise, Father Sean Llewellyn vouched for me He is the Catholic priest in Pico Mundo

Father Llewellyn is also the uncle of Stormy Llewellyn, whom I had loved and lost Whom I will forever cherish