Swinging planks of lantern light shine through the musty air and onto the dirt floor of the church basement. The oddly glowing rectangles dance over the damp ground and illuminate even the darkest stooped-down corners of the space beyond.

The shapes are out of place on this bright autumn afternoon. Outside, it is still daylight. Only an hour ago, the end-of-day voices of schoolchildren could be heard echoing over the grassy hillside as the students walked home to neighboring farms. Down here in the dark, the only human sound is the ragged breathing of two men.

If not for this gruesome errand and their spiritual faith, the men would have nothing in common at all. They are separated from each other by class, motive, age, and vocation, and yet have been made temporary equals by this dread they now share.

One of the men, the young parish priest, holds a malignant rumor in his heart and the lantern handle in his hand. A hand that shakes, causing the kerosene glow behind the light’s glass chimney to illuminate its earthbound quarry unevenly. The other man, a laborer, is much older and has only recently been promoted to church sexton. He grips a hand-forged farm implement and slides it gingerly into the dirt.

His tool is a potato fork, a shorter, squatter, less savage-looking cousin of the pitchfork. It is commonly used for bringing potatoes up out of the ground at harvest time without damaging them and not for authenticating church gossip. Leaning nearby, against the basement wall, are two shovels, just in case.

Despite their differences, above ground these men belong completely to this place, in both body and soul. A glimpse of their faces anywhere in the sanctuary, the rectory, the school, the barn, or the gardens would be a welcome sight. The priest is the religious and cultural leader of an insular flock of immigrant Polish farmers in Northern Michigan. He is well liked and respected for his handsome good looks and obvious spiritual fire. The sexton is appreciated too, for his consistency and practical skills. And today, by the priest at least, for his loyalty.

But here below, these men of Isadore are interlopers. Only trespassers would sneak silently into the church’s sloped underbelly without witness to carry out such a sinful and secret errand as theirs. Despite their tools and their lantern and their resolve, neither is equipped for the task at hand nor what is to come.

Still, the younger man watches while the older man labors. The grave they seek isn’t deep, and they don’t have to wait long before it is found. The pile of lumber that hid it for more than a decade is gone. The tines of the sexton’s fork strike something hard and smooth and almost porcelain-like. A bone. A human thigh bone.

The men share a long look at one another but say nothing. They each must surely know what the other is thinking. That the rumors are true. That the missing nun, their spiritual sibling and fellow attendant of God, did not run away from the convent after all. She didn’t turn her back on her calling and flee with a lover. She wasn’t kidnapped and neither did she slip into madness like her mother and wander into the swamp at the edge of the meadow. Instead, she was taken from them. And yet, she was also here all along.

The shovels turn out to be necessary. The priest puts down the lantern to help his sexton dig. With first the potato fork, and then the shovels, and finally their bare hands, the men find many more bones – nearly a full skeleton – laid to rest on her back as if bent in half, her arms flung over her raised knees. At one end of the grave they find a pair of low-heeled shoes with small foot bones still inside. At the other end, a human skull.

Rotting over these bones are remnants of the coarse brown wool traditionally used to fashion a nun’s habit, as well as a piece of a braided black waist cord. It was is if the Sister simply went to the basement, ducked her head under the small door frame, walked to her shallow grave, and, without making a sound, lay down in this raw grittiness and died. Except for one thing.

The sexton digs up the skull with his shovel, then cradles it in the warm bowl of his dirt-smeared hands. The earth surrounding this spot has a darker color than anywhere else.


He caresses the brain cavity with his calloused thumbs, rubbing away years of dirt. He does not see or feel the crack a few inches above the skull’s right temple, but it is there.
Yes, it was exactly as if the Sister just walked here of her own volition and lay down in her grave, except for that.