November 30, 1994
By the time Brendan left Norseland at ten the next morning, the storm that had stranded her had given way to blue skies and blinding sun on the new snow. Highway 169 had been plowed, and traffic had melted off the last of the ice glaze into harmless rivulets of water.
Elke had insisted that she stay for an enormous, artery-clogging farm breakfast consisting of ham and bacon, potatoes, eggs, and thick slices of toast made from homemade honey wheat bread. Now, in the car headed south, Brendan fought to keep her eyes open and wished she could take a nap.
In the quaint little town of St. Peter, she stopped at a convenience store and got coffee. She had intended to buy gas too, but Sven Hanson had filled the tank from his pump at the farm. Brendan wondered for the hundredth time what would possibly motivate these simple farm folk to treat a stranger so well. The only answer she could come up with was the answer Elke had given: "It's just our way."
South of St. Peter, huge rocky cliffs rose on Brendan's right, and to her left, low-lying fields swept down to the river. A cave in those cliffs, Elke had told her, once provided refuge to Jesse James when he was on the run from the authorities. The woman had said it with pride, as if the outlaw had been an honored ancestor.
Brendan drove on, enjoying the unfamiliar, snow-covered scenery, until she reached the outskirts of Mankato, Minnesota, where she stopped to get directions to the address Ellie had given her. The fellow running the gas station—a gray-haired man with a distinct stoop—stared at the slip of paper and nodded.
"You know where it is?"
"Yep."
"Is it nearby?"
"Yep." He motioned to her to follow, went out the door, and pointed to a high hill in the distance. "There she is."
Brendan squinted and saw an enormous building that looked like a small castle. "There must be some mistake."
"No mistake. It's the Mother House." The man said the words quietly, and his face bore an expression of awe and reverence. "Take the bypass here and get off at the next exit. Go left, and then another left on the first road. It's a ways up the hill, but you can't miss it."
Brendan thanked him, got back in the car, and followed his directions. All she had to go on was an address on a slip of paper, but the man had seemed to know the place immediately The Mother House, he called it. What did that mean?
As the rental car labored to the top of the hill, Brendan found herself confronted with a sprawling brick building. It had to be at least a hundred years old—three stories high with towers and turrets and two enormous wings going off from the center. A sign at the crest of the hill read: School Sisters of Notre Dame.
Brendan knew she had to be in the wrong place, but there was nothing to do but go inside and ask for directions again. She parked the car, got out, and wandered toward what seemed to be the only entrance—a set of double doors covered by a black awning. As she pulled the door open, she nearly ran headlong into a pleasant-faced young woman in a down jacket and furlined boots.
"May I help you?" The woman smiled and took a step back.
"I—I don't know," Brendan stammered. "I'm looking for someone."
The woman pointed. "Up the stairs and to the left. Where the sign says, Office. Someone should be able to help you."
Upstairs, Brendan found herself in a long hallway. The place was eerily silent except for the distant tapping of a typewriter. She found the office and knocked timidly.
"Come."
Brendan opened the door and stuck her head inside. A rotund woman of about fifty, with graying hair and ruddy cheeks, sat behind a desk. "I'm sorry to disturb you," Brendan began. "I'm trying to find someone, but I'm afraid I'm in the wrong place."
The woman grinned broadly. "That depends on who you're looking for."
Brendan held out the slip of paper Ellie James had given her. "Is this the right address?"
"Yes indeed. And the person's name—?"
"Mary Love Buchanan. She's an elderly woman, in her eighties."
The woman rose from behind the desk and went to the door. "Follow me." She moved noiselessly down the hallway, with Brendan close on her heels, until they reached a set of oak doors. "She's been very frail of late," the woman warned. "We don't like to see her overtired."
Brendan reached out a hand and laid it on the woman's arm. "What is this place?"
"Why, it's the Mother House. Of the School Sisters of Notre Dame."
"And Mary Love lives here?"
"Many of our elderly come here when they retire." The woman fixed her with an odd gaze. "Come. You'll see."
She opened the door and ushered Brendan into what seemed like a different world. It was a chapel, with high vaulted ceilings and two steps up to a broad stone altar illuminated by the dim light from stained-glass windows. On the altar, a perpetual flame burned, and in a corner to the right, a statue of the Virgin Mary was fronted by a bank of burning votives. The candles cast a wavering light over the Virgin's feet and threw moving shadows into her face. In front of the shrine sat a wheelchair, occupied by a nun in full habit.
Brendan's guide went directly over to the nun and waited, then cleared her throat quietly. "Sister? You have a visitor."
Gnarled hands reached out from the folds of the black habit and grasped the wheels. The chair pivoted, and Brendan found herself staring into the face of an ancient woman. Her skin was wrinkled and seamed, but her eyes shone like chunks of pale aquamarine. The old nun squinted and peered at Brendan.
"Do I know you?"
Brendan hesitated. "Mary Love Buchanan?"
"No one has used that name in years," the elderly nun whispered. "Who are you?"
"I'm Brendan Delaney I've come to see you, all the way from Asheville, North Carolina." She paused. "An old friend of yours sent me. Ellie James."
A shadow passed over the old woman's face, and she crossed herself. "She's not dead, is she?"
Brendan smiled. "No." She turned to the gray-haired woman. "Is there someplace we can talk?"
"Upstairs, in the day room. Do you feel up to it, Sister?"
The nun turned a scalding look on the woman. "How many times do I have to tell you, Janelle? I'm not infirm, and I don't need pampering." She rolled her eyes at Brendan. "This one looks hale and hearty enough to give me a push. You go on back to your work."
Janelle smiled and patted the old nun's hand. "All right. I'll see you later." Then she was gone, as silently as she had come.
"Young nuns!" the old woman spat out. "You get old, and people start treating you like a child again." She looked up at Brendan. "What did you say your name was?"
"Brendan Delaney."
"Ah. A good, strong Irish name. Catholic, are you?
"Brendan shook her head. "I'm afraid not."
"Well, too bad for you, Brendan Delaney. Now, let's get going."
Brendan took control of the wheelchair and pushed as the nun gave directions. Down the hall, up the elevator to the third floor, and into a bright, spacious room with windows overlooking snow-covered woods. When they arrived, the nun set the brake on the wheelchair and transferred herself to a high-backed wing chair facing the view. She waved a hand in Brendan's direction. "Get that thing out of my sight, will you? I need it to get around—spinal degeneration, you know. But I hate seeing it. Reminds me I'm getting on in years, even if I don't like to admit it."
Brendan moved the wheelchair to a corner by the door and returned to find the nun with her feet on the coffee table. She was wearing white sweat socks and Nike running shoes under her habit.
"Sit," the old woman commanded, waving a hand at the chair next to her. Brendan sat.
"So Ellie sent you, did she? Guess you didn't expect to find a nun."
"No, ma'am, I didn't," Brendan admitted. "I have to say it was a bit of a shock. I—I don't even know what to call you."
"Call me Mary Love, of course. Sister Mary Love, if you like."
"So you kept your own name?"
"I have another, the name I adopted when I donned my first habit. Nuns these days keep their baptismal names, you know. And I rather like being called Mary Love. I've worn this habit for over fifty years, but I never could get away from thinking of myself as that little Buchanan girl from Asheville."
"All right, Sister." The word felt foreign on Brendan's tongue. "Do you mind explaining to me what kind of place this is, what you're doing here?"
"This is the Mother House of the School Sisters of Notre Dame. We are an order of teaching nuns, and this house—our central headquarters, if you will—is an administrative center. The activities of the order are organized from here. A lot goes on here—spiritual direction, training, counseling. It's also a home for retired nuns. Those who are physically able still work—making clothes and quilts for the homeless, for example. Sister Janelle, the nun who brought you to me, is the Reverend Mother's administrative assistant."
"That woman was a nun?"
"You obviously watch too much television. Times have changed; the church has changed. Most nuns these days don't wear habits any longer. In my day, we all wore them, and some of us older ones have retained the traditional garb." She grinned broadly "Force of habit, I suppose you'd say"
Brendan chuckled at the joke.
Sister Mary Love shifted in her chair. "Now, just why is it you've come all this way?"
Brendan reached into her bag, drew out the blue glass bottle, and set it on the table.
"Lord, have mercy." The old sister shut her eyes and crossed herself.
"You recognize this bottle?"
Mary Love opened her eyes. "I could never forget, not in a thousand years."
"That's why I've come." Briefly, Brendan sketched out the story of finding the bottle during the demolition of Cameron House, and how the idea had gotten into her blood, leading her to track down the four young women who had committed their dreams to the bottle.
"Good heavens—that was sixty years ago."
"Sixty-five."
"Sixty-five years. I remember it as if it were yesterday."
"Do you remember this?" Brendan laid a page in front of her, a photocopy of the pen-and-ink drawing that had been left in the bottle. "You said, years ago, that your dream was to be an artist. You showed a lot of promise, even as a young girl."
"Yes, promise," Mary Love murmured, half to herself. "But promise has a way of getting diverted.' Dreams change, you know. They carry us for a while, they die, and then—if we're fortunate enough to have eyes to see— they're reborn. The path we choose for ourselves isn't necessarily the path God chooses for us. . . . "