Chapter Fifteen
Sam rallied the next day and was able to get behind the wheel, but when Metallica started blasting from the speakers, he slapped irritably at the stereo.
"Hey, I was listening to that!" complained Dean.
"I need something soothing this morning," Sam declared.
"Metallica can be soothing," Sister Felicity countered.
"Listen to the Bride of Christ, Sammy," instructed Dean piously, "She's a holy person, divinely inspired. You'll probably go to Hell for disobeying a nun."
"Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his – or her – cakehole," Sam actually smirked. "It's Dean's rule. Pick something else."
"Okay, okay," the nun grumbled, fiddling with the stereo. Eventually, the strains of an orchestra filled the car. "Oh, it's The Magic Flute!" chirped Sister Felicity. "Can we listen to this?"
"Sure," smiled Sam.
"What?" squawked Dean. "What? What happened to Metallica being soothing?"
"It is," Sister Felicity turned and grinned at him, "But this – it's heavy metal for grown-ups."
A bit later, one of Mozart's most famous arias began.
"Oh, I love this bit!" Sister Felicity beamed. " 'Hell's vengeance boils in my heart! Death and despair flame about me!' She's a wonderful villain, isn't she?" She began to sing. "Fühlt nicht durch dich Sarastro Todesschmerzen, So bist du meine Tochter nimmermehr…"
She launched into the first coloratura passage with much gusto, if not terribly much accuracy of pitch.
"Holy crap!" yelped Sam. He looked apologetically at her. "Um, sorry," he went on, "It's just that..." he fished for a tactful way to say what he was thinking, but admitted defeat in the face of her brutal assault on the helpless notes cowering above the staff. "Uh, look, to be frank, has anybody ever pointed out to you that you can't sing?"
"Murder on the high Cs?" suggested Dean solicitously.
"Oh, repeatedly," Sister Felicity smiled, "I was actually excused from the choir in my first week as a postulant. But I don't let that stop me! I like to think that what I lack in ability, I make up in enthusiasm!"
"Does the name Florence Foster Jenkins mean anything to you?" Sam asked sourly.
"She's my inspiration!" Sister Felicity grinned unrepentantly. "Go ahead and tell me I can't sing, but nobody will ever be able to say I didn't sing!" She resumed her recital.
"Oh, God," Sam moaned, "You're as bad as Dean! No, I think you're worse!"
"I recognise this bit," Dean added sunnily, "I think it was in a commercial for a car, or something..." he joined in with some enthusiastic falsetto la-la-la-ing, then Jimi whuffed in excitement and howled along.
"Aaaaaaaaaargh! Stop it! All of you!"
"Verstossen sei auf ewig!"
"Laaaaaaa-laaaaaaaa-la-laaaaaaaa-la!"
"Awroooooooooooo!"
"Jerk! And you, you, you… harpy!"
"Sissy."
"Bitch."
"Rowf!"
...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...
By the time they made it to St. Claire's in Topeka, Sam was complaining that his headache was in fact getting worse, and his hearing was permanently damaged.
"I hate you all so much," he muttered as Sister Porteress came out to greet them.
"Don't bust our bubble, Sammy," Dean grinned, "It's gotta be better than swapping stories about Chicks I Have Banged Or Heard About Being Banged, right?"
"I'm taking the fifth on that one," Sam grumbled.
After a lunch at which Jimi once more managed to charm an older nun, and Dean offered to marry her in order to have her pie-making expertise all to himself, another Sister showed them to a large, sunny lounge where two elderly women sat on comfortable sofas.
"Sister Agnes?" the younger nun called. "Sister Agnes, this is Father Angus, and Jimi, Father Malcolm, and Sister Felicity. She would like to speak to you, if you are feeling up to it."
"Of course," the elderly nun shook hands with Dean and Sam (and Jimi), eyeing them shrewdly, then turned to the other nun. "Would you be Sister Felicity Morgan?"
"Yes, that's me," Sister Felicity confirmed, a little nervously. "But it's the whole surname thing I'd like to talk to you about."
"Sit down, my dear," she patted the sofa beside her, and put aside her knitting. "Sister Glenda spoke to me of your letter, and your search." She grinned a little cheekily. "I do hope you didn't catch nun when you were born here," she said, and Sister Felicity laughed a little, "I'd hate to think that it was some sort of infection you picked up."
"I'm pretty sure that nun isn't contagious," Felicity reasoned, "Or there would be a lot more of us than there are. The thing is," she went on, "Sister Glenda said that there was nothing in the records. A lot of stuff has been... lost."
"Lost," sighed Sister Agnes, her bright eyes peering keenly at Felicity's face. "Yes, lost. Although the word 'lost' usually indicates a lack of intention to have something going missing." Her kindly, lined face became a little sad. "They were very different times," she said gently. "It was thought that it was best for the child, and the mother too, if there was a clean, complete break between them. I suspect that in many institutions such as ours, records were not assiduously archived, and if they went missing, nobody made much effort to go looking for them." She looked around. "This place was extensively refurbished, some twenty years ago," she told them. "A lot of old paperwork deemed... unwanted, and was disposed of."
"Sister Helen's at St Basil's has a room half full of boxes of paper from St Claire's," Sam pointed out. "She said that you had a hand in sending it there."
"So I did," the elderly face went hard defiance. "Ha! And I spent a week on my knees for it years ago. But it was safe. As soon as Sister Helen had hold of it, it was all safe. She takes her archiving very seriously. She defends her documents like a she-wolf watching her pups." Her smile held an element of calculation, and she glared at Sam and Dean. "Nobody will be able to get hold of any of it without getting past her."
"Unfortunately, the documentation there was too late to cover anything relating to me," Sister Felicity said, "I was born here in 1974. I know it's a long time ago, more than thirty years, closer to forty now, but..." her eyes became pleading. "Sister Agnes, do you remember anything?"
"I remember too much," the old nun told her, patting her hand sorrowfully. "I know it was supposed to be for the best, but, oh, I never encountered one who didn't love the little person she gave birth to. Some of them fought like tigers, but... what could they do?"
"I don't even know my mother's name," Felicity said, "But, do you remember any babies called Felicity? One that could have been me?"
"That wouldn't have been your name," Sister Agnes reminded her gently. "Any babies who were named by their mothers, their adoptive parents gave them a new one."
Felicity's face was desolate. "So, I'm back at square one," she said flatly. Sam put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
"I'm so sorry, my dear," Sister Agnes's face was full of compassion; then a flash of that calculating look flickered over it, so fast that only a Hunter, or maybe an ex-cop, would notice it. "I am so sorry to have distressed you, Sister," she went on. "There is a beautiful little garden where I like to go to pray, sometimes, when I am upset about something. It's so peaceful, and I always manage to find a measure of solace there. I would so like to share it with you." She picked up a walking stick. "Please excuse us, Fathers," she said politely, "I wish to pray privately with Sister Felicity. As a penance, for the hurt I caused her with my part in this..."
Sister Felicity smiled understandingly. "It's okay," she reassured Sister Agnes, "They're with me. As in, they're helping me to look for any information about my birth family."
"We're priests, and we're here to help," Dean grinned.
"I'm a priest, I'm here to help," the old nun shook her head in amusement. "If I had a dime for every time I've heard that..." she paused, and appeared to make a decision. She turned stiffly, and addressed the other elderly nun. "Sister Lucia? Sister Lucia! Would you like another cup of tea, Sister Lucia?"
The only answer she got was a gentle snore.
"She spends most of her time asleep these days, dear old thing," Sister Agnes chuckled, "She's in her nineties. She was the first to adopt the new habit after Vatican II. You wouldn't know it now, but she was a true progressive. Help me up, sister."
Sister Felicity took Sister Agnes' arm, and helped her to her feet. "So then, walk with me. You come along too, Fathers," she added, in a tone that indicated she believed that allowing them to tag along was an act of unparalleled charity, "Perhaps I'll need your help after all."
"Oh, do you need us to get you a wheelchair, Sister?" asked Sam.
"Not that sort of help," snapped Sister Agnes, "But when we get where we're going, I may need a priest so I can confess forty years of disobedience."
...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...
The elderly nun took them on a long walk around the convent building. Their route seemed to ramble, with no pattern or actual destination, but it was apparently calculated to encounter as few other people as possible. She indicated points of interest as they went, a small chapel, a venerated relic, a part of the original building that was conserved.
"If you don't mind heights, you get a most astonishing view from the roof gallery," she informed them, "That part of the building wasn't touched, what with it being on the historic register, and the money not being infinite. Let's go and see, it's been a while since I've been up there, it's safe enough if you watch where you put your feet."
The final flights of stairs were slow going, with Sister Agnes leaning on her stick and the bannisters, but finally they arrived at a small, dusty set of rooms that were filled with the sort of things that end up shoved into attics and forgotten, simply because carting them all the way back down to ground level to dispose of them would be too much effort. The windows were caked with grime, and the smell of dry rot and mouldering furnishings hung in the air.
"I need you to shift those desks," instructed Sister Agnes.
"Oh, er, he's, uh," began Sam.
"He's perfectly capable of helping you," snapped the old nun, "He's no more blind than he is an actual priest. Oh, the body might be failing," she snorted in amusement at the Winchesters' shock, "But there's nothing wrong with the grey matter." She tapped the side of her head. "And that's the biggest 'guide dog' I've ever seen." She turned to Sister Felicity. "I don't know why you're here with a couple of Hunters – oh, aren't they just adorable when they gawp like that, they're like a couple of confused goldfish – but I'm assuming that it's important. Especially if they thought it was necessary to find a way to bring their dog." She cocked her head and studied Jimi. "One of my brothers Hunted, with a Wildhunt dog, but they're German Shepherds. Is this one a Schwartzhund pup?"
"He's from... a different bloodline," Dean replied, taking off his glasses. "He's half-Hellhound."
"Huh. Well, you learn something every day," mused Sister Agnes. "Don't just stand there, you youngsters shift those desks."
Dean, Sam and Felicity did as they were bid, coughing and sneezing as the dust was stirred up. They made enough space to get between the broken furniture and the wall, where a table stacked with crumbling books under a tarpaulin was jammed against the panelling. "Just pull it out," the old nun said, "Now, you're looking for a board above the panelling, with a word carved into the wood. It's only small, so you'll have to look closely..."
"There's one here," Sam peered hard at the block letters cut into the grain. "Spes. Latin for 'hope'."
"That's the one," nodded Sister Angnes. "The panel underneath it, pull that out. It should be loose."
It was stuck, presumably with the dust and grime of years, but eventually Sam and Dean managed to work it loose.
"So, what are we looking for?" Dean asked, as his eyes adjusted to the gloom behind the panel, "I wish I'd brought a flashlight... holy crap."
Behind the panelling was a small crawl space. It was packed with boxes. The smell of old, dry paper wafted out.
"You'll have to pull quite a bit out to get to 1974," Sister Agnes informed them regretfully, "There's another ten years shoved in on top of it."
"I'll go, I'm smallest," Sister Felicity said, carefully clambering through the panelling.
"What the hell is this?" asked Dean, mystified, as Felicity passed delicate old boxes out.
"Looks like somebody was doing some archiving of her own," suggested Sam with a smile.
"Mea maxima culpa," Sister Agnes grinned unashamedly. "When the refurbishment was being planned, I suspected that a lot of these records would be classified as 'redundant', and be thrown out. I sent what I could get away with to Sister Helen, but then I was given a direct order not to remove any more documents from the premises. So," she said slyly. "I didn't. Sister Lucia helped me; in fact. We stashed away as much as we could without getting caught."
"1974," called Sister Felicity, handing out a box with the date on the side in fading ink. "There's several of them."
"But... why?" asked Dean. "Why did you do this?"
Sister Agnes smiled sadly. "I was a novice at much the same age as Sister Felicity," she recounted, "And before that, I embraced the late fifties, and then the sixties. It was an exciting time: music, political activism, women's rights, and, of course, free love." She grinned in a way he wouldn't have expected from a nun. "We were the generation that invented sex, you know," she told him archly, cocking an eyebrow.
"Thank you!" chirped Dean brightly. "Oh, damn it, I'll have to re-set my watch again..."
"And then, the thing about free love, I discovered, was that it wasn't entirely free, after all."
"You had a baby," Sam guessed. "You were an unmarried mother."
"Daniel," Sister Agnes's eyes shone with recollection. "I knew that his adopting family would call him what they wanted, but I named him Daniel. And he was the most beautiful, most perfect, most wonderful thing I'd ever done. Ever have done." She wiped her eyes. "My family were horrified, of course, and hid me away in a 'refuge' for unwed mothers..."
"Another convent," Sam nodded.
"And they took my little boy away, and told me it was best for him, as well as me," she went on. "They told me to go, and forget about him. And I tried, but... how could I? He was my son! I looked for him later, but, well, I think Sister Felicity will tell you how that usually ends. Anyway, ten years later, I found my vocation. And when I was assigned to St Claire's, I knew why I'd been sent." She lifted her chin defiantly. "If there was anything I could do, anything, to increase somebody else's chances of finding their child, or their birth family, I'd do it. If it meant flouting Church policy, so be it. And so..." she waved a hand at the hole in the wall. "I salvaged what I could."
"This is the last one marked 1974," Sister Felicity emerged with a final box. "So, which one is November?"
The began to scour the boxes, trying to work in some sort of chronological order.
"I got a Morgan!" Sam announced triumphantly. "Yeah, I got a Morgan! A letter from... Frank and Kathleen Morgan!"
"Show me!" Sister Felicity snatched the letter from his hand. "This is our address, when I was a kid," she told them, "The house where I grew up."
"An application to adopt could arrive months before the birth of a particular baby," Sister Agnes informed them, "Your records may be much later."
They continued to burrow through the boxes. "Another Morgan," announced Felicity, reading quickly. "To F. & K. Morgan. From Mother Superior Joseph..."
"She became boss penguin just after I was first professed," Sister Agnes mused.
"... 'Dear Frank and Kathleen, I am delighted to inform you'..." Sister Felicity dropped the letter, and rummaged through the rest of the box. "Come on, come on," she muttered to herself. "Gah! This box ends mid-November!"
They nearly missed it; the file itself had been folded back, as if it had been stuffed into the box by someone more intent on filing it quickly than filing it correctly. But it contained a copy of the birth certificate of Felicity Kay Morgan, with her father listed as Frank Matthew Morgan, and her mother as Kathleen Bridget Morgan...
"This is it," she breathed, looking at the document in her shaking hand, "I recognise my birth certificate..."
The piece of paper behind it was smaller, duller, not on the official stationery in magnificent copperplate script, but written in haste, as if the details were not important.
"Female," she read, her voice shaking, "Born 19th November, 1974..." she kept reading silently. Then she smiled, and a tear slid down her face. "Deanna," she announced, "My mother named me. She gave me a name! She named me Deanna."
"Does it have her name?" prompted Dean.
"Yes," Sister Felicity let out a strangled sob of delight, "My mother. Mary. Her name was Mary. Mary Campbell. And it's even got my father's name, too!" She looked up, smiling brilliantly. "I'm Deanna, the daughter of Mary Campbell, and John Winchester."
A CD entitled The Glory (? ? ? ?) Of The Human Voice is one of my favourites. It's a compilation of Florence Foster Jenkins' greatest hits. If you are not acquainted with the astonishing 'talent' that was Flo Fo, I urge you to look her up; I believe that audio of her rendition of the Queen Of The Night's aria is on YouTube. She was the forerunner of so many would-be participants of shows like America's Got No Talent, American Idle and The Icks Factor that she should be officially recognised as their patron saint.
Reviews Make The Bunny Sing!*
*In tune.