Free Bad Faith by Aimée and David Thurlo

also get our novice and postulant to help with whatever scriptorium duties you think they can handle. We need you now to use those skills you developed as a reporter to find the truth and restore our peace.”
    “Whatever I can do, I will, Reverend Mother.”
    “I knew I could count on you. Begin your work with the blessing of God.” Reverend Mother stood up slowly as if she were shouldering the weight of the world, and continued her walk alone.
    Sister Agatha watched her go, lost in thought.
    “I’m very worried about Reverend Mother,” Sister Eugenia said, joining Sister Agatha at the bench. The loyalty and love that every single nun in the monastery felt for Mother made it hard for them to see her so worried now. “As infirmarian, it’s my job to make sure everyone stays healthy, but Reverend Mother barely touched her food today. I offered to bring her something to eat later, but she refused.”
    “She’s worried about our future here. Father Anselm’s death and its ramifications have hit her very hard.”
    “While you were gone this afternoon, she warned us that we might have the police underfoot again. The archbishop’s office called to say that they may be forced to grant us permission to allow the sheriff to enter our enclosure.”
    “Then you know why she’s worried.”
    “I’m certain that Sheriff Green is a reasonable man. He’ll see we’re not responsible for what happened, and will soon be looking elsewhere.”
    Sister Agatha didn’t answer. She really wished she could share Sister Eugenia’s optimism, but in truth, she was afraid of what lay ahead for all of them.
    Before Compline, Reverend Mother gathered them together in the parlor to break the news that they wouldn’t be able to offer prayers in their chapel for the time being. The chapel would have to remain closed until it could be rededi-cated and reconsecrated by either the bishop or someone he delegated. No prayer could be said to God in a place that had been tainted by a murder. And although there was no proof the priest had been given the poison in the chapel, he’d certainly died there, and there were enough unanswered questions surrounding his death to cause the rule to go into effect.
    The older sisters, like Sister Clothilde and Sister Ignatius, took it as hard as Sister Agatha had expected. A change in their lives had come about suddenly, and in a place where things always remained constant—where the years never left a mark except on the faces of those who dwelled in the enclosure—it marked the beginning of the many trials that were yet to come.

    The Great Silence that had begun after Compline now held the monastery in perfect stillness except for the random creaking of the building itself and the song of the crickets outside the walls. The nuns had gone to their cells, the name given to their simple sleeping quarters. As extern sisters, Sister Bernarda and Sister Agatha had cells toward the front of the monastery, near the parlor doors. In case of a crisis, they were immediately available to reach the telephone in the parlor to summon help and to open the doors to a doctor or emergency personnel.
    In some monasteries externs had sleeping quarters outside the cloister, but she was glad that wasn’t the rule here. Many were the tasks that separated the extern sisters from the choir nuns—a term synonymous with cloistered nuns and used as far back as anyone could remember. It, more than likely, had been taken from the name given to the cloistered and grated sections of a monastery chapel, called choir. Yet despite the differences in duties, unity of purpose defined and bonded all the sisters. They spent their whole lives living together, and what bound their souls together was a common purpose and love as unbreakable as steel.
    Sister Agatha looked up at the simple wooden cross above her bed, said a quick prayer, then crawled into bed. She soon drifted into a peaceful sleep.
    Sometime in the middle of the night, Sister