Brother Odd

pleasure of seeking you out if you have beaten a child. I will know just what to do with you, and I will have eternity to do it.
        In the recreation room on that snowy morning, perhaps with Hell coming to meet us in the hours ahead, the children laughed and talked and gave themselves to make-believe.
        At the piano in the corner sat a ten-year-old boy named Walter. He was a crack baby and a meth baby and a Wild Turkey baby and a God-knows-what baby. He could not speak and rarely made eye contact. He couldn't learn to dress himself. After hearing a melody just once, he could play it note-perfect, with passion and nuance. Although he had lost so much else, this gift of talent had survived.
        He played softly, beautifully, lost in the music. I think it was Mozart. I'm too ignorant to know for sure.
        While Walter made music, while the children played and laughed, bodachs crawled the room. The three last night had become seven.

CHAPTER 18
        
        SISTER ANGELA, THE MOTHER SUPERIOR, managed the convent and the school from a small office adjacent to the infirmary. The desk, the two visitors' chairs, and the file cabinets were simple but inviting.
        On the wall behind her desk hung a crucifix, and on the other walls were three posters: George Washington; Harper Lee, the author of To Kill a Mockingbird; and Flannery O'Connor, the author of "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" and many other stories.
        She admires these people for many reasons, but especially for one quality they all shared. She will not identify that quality. She wishes you to ponder the riddle and arrive at your own answer.
        Standing in her office doorway I said, "I'm sorry about my feet, ma'am."
        She looked up from a file she was reviewing. "If they have a fragrance, it's not so intense that I smelled you coming."
        "No, ma'am. I'm sorry for my stocking feet. Sister Clare Marie took my boots."
        "I'm sure she'll give them back, Oddie. We've had no problem with Sister Clare Marie stealing footwear. Come in, sit down."
        I settled into one of the chairs in front of her desk, indicated the posters, and said, "They're all Southerners."
        "Southerners have many fine qualities, charm and civility among them, and a sense of the tragic, but that's not why these particular faces are inspiring to me."
        I said, "Fame."
        "Now you're being intentionally dense," she said.
        "No, ma'am, not intentionally."
        "If what I admired in these three was their fame, then I'd just as well have put up posters of Al Capone, Bart Simpson, and Tupac Shakur."
        "That sure would be something," I said.
        Leaning forward, lowering her voice, she said, "What's happened to dear Brother Timothy?"
        "Nothing good. That's all I know for sure. Nothing good."
        "One thing we can be certain of-he didn't dash off to Reno for some R and R. His disappearance must be related to the thing we spoke of last evening. The event the bodachs have come to witness."
        "Yes, ma'am, whatever it is. I just saw seven of them in the recreation room."
        "Seven." Her soft grandmotherly features stiffened with steely resolution. "Is the crisis at hand?"
        "Not with seven. When I see thirty, forty, then I'll know we're coming to the edge. There's still time, but the clock is ticking."
        "I spoke with Abbot Bernard about the discussion you and I had last night. And now with the disappearance of Brother Timothy, we're wondering if the children should be moved."
        "Moved? Moved where?"
        "We could take them into town."
        "Ten miles in this weather?"
        "In the garage we have two beefy four-wheel-drive extended SUVs with wheelchair lifts. They're on oversize tires to give more ground clearance, plus chains on the tires. Each is fitted with a plow. We can make our own path."
        Moving the kids was not a good idea, but I sure wanted to see nuns in monster trucks plowing their way through a blizzard.
        "We can take eight to ten in each van," she continued. "Moving half the sisters and all the children might require four trips, but if we start now we'll be done in a few hours, before nightfall."
        Sister Angela is a doer. She likes to be on the move physically and intellectually, always conceiving and implementing projects, accomplishing things.
        Her can-do spirit is endearing. At that moment, she