A Demon Summer Read Online Free PDF

least, the appearance is of financial shenanigans. Money that was fund-raised to expand and refurbish the Monkbury Abbey Guesthouse has largely disappeared. It is too early to say if or how the money was misappropriated. I’m rather hoping it just got, you know, misfiled somehow. Put into Column A when it should have gone under Column B.”
    Max, reflecting on the books for Nether Monkslip and his other two churches, rather doubted this was possible, but then the nunnery probably had many more revenue streams to account for than his tiny parishes and bigger weekly expenses than facial tissue and antibacterial wipes.
    â€œAnd for a nunnery,” the bishop was saying, “just the appearance of such a thing is alarming. If it turns out to be true … well, I don’t have to point out the implications for you. It would tarnish the image not just of Monkbury Abbey but of the entire monastic tradition, which, as you also know, has had a lot of scandal to live down in the past.”
    A dodgy nunnery? Not unheard of historically, as the bishop had said, but surely nowadays …
    Max’s imaginings were gleaned from hazy school lectures, in which out-of-control monks and nuns of the Middle Ages had gone from wealth to decadence, as often happens when power goes unsupervised.
    â€œI don’t really know a lot about the order,” said Max.
    â€œYou are not alone,” said the bishop. “They are members of the Order of the Handmaids of St. Lucy of the Light, which is an offshoot of the Benedictine tradition. A far-reaching tendril, I might add. They are following many of the precepts of the sixth-century Rule of St. Benedict, but for obvious reasons they have had to make some modifications over the centuries. Corporeal punishment, just to mention one thing, is not so much in vogue as once it was. The Lucians used to be considered a bit of a fringe group, actually, but those days are long past.”
    â€œYes, now that you refresh my memory, the name sounds familiar,” Max said. “The Lucians. Still, I’ve only just heard of the order.”
    â€œI am not surprised. They are quite a small group: thirty-one in number, down from hundreds of members in their glory days. Although lately they have established a bit of a presence in the world. I understand recruitment inquiries are up.”
    â€œIt’s quite an ancient order, isn’t it?”
    â€œYes. The original Lucians were founded as a double order in the eleventh century by people wanting a simple and secluded way of life. Like many such, they were reactionaries—in revolt against the wealth and worldliness of other orders of the time.”
    â€œUntil corruption crept in again.”
    â€œQuite. Not all nuns and monks were corrupt, as you know, but Henry the Eighth was nothing if not thorough in putting his own ideas in place. Monkbury Abbey was spared the worst excesses of the Reformation because it was so remote—even dismantling the buildings to repurpose the bricks and stones for other uses, as commonly happened elsewhere, wasn’t all that practical. So large parts of its structures were preserved even though Mother Nature soon took over: the place eventually became overgrown and ramshackle in appearance, the haunt of ghosts, hobgoblins, and the occasional passing hippie.”
    The bishop hesitated, peering at Max. The handsome priest, gregarious in many ways, was strangely reticent in others. He so seldom spoke of his past. The bishop supposed that was part of his MI5 training, but the reluctance to talk of his experiences clearly ran deep. Not surprising, that. Spying was a dangerous and dirty business.
    â€œYou have a relative in the religious life, am I right?” asked the bishop.
    â€œYes,” said Max. “An aunt. My father’s sister. I can’t say I know her at all well: her convent is cloistered. For obvious reasons, she wasn’t a big part of my childhood. When