The Apron of Saint Agnes

The heat of that summer was unlike any I’d felt before. Our small town of Morrow’s Landing, nestled between the pine barrens and the salt marshes, was celebrating its bicentennial, and the air was thick with the smell of fried dough and the drone of cicadas. I was seven, clinging to the rough denim of my mother’s jeans as we pressed through the crowd. Then, like a leaf torn from a branch, I let go. I was swept into a sea of hips and legs, a forest of adults blocking all sight. I called out, my voice a tiny squeak in the cacophony. I didn’t hear her answer, but I spotted the familiar red of her bandana bobbing behind me. I relaxed, turned back to the glittering floats.

That’s when I saw her. A nun, her black habit standing stark against the pastel-colored crowd, was walking along the edge of the sidewalk, away from the parade. She wasn’t watching the trucks or the marching band; her eyes were fixed on something cradled in her hands. I saw her lower the white apron that hung from her waist, forming a dish. I was struck by a strange curiosity, a pull that made me leave the safety of my mother’s sight.

I wove through the legs, my small body slipping between the bodies until I was beside her. I tugged at her sleeve. She stopped, looked down at me with eyes that were the color of a winter sky, and smiled. Her smile was too wide, I remember, but her voice was soft as she asked, ‘Yes, child?’

‘What are you carrying?’ I asked, peeking at the apron.

She lowered the edge, and I saw it. A baby. Tiny, wrinkled, with a whimper that was almost lost in the noise. But he wasn’t wrapped in a blanket. He was naked, his skin the color of milk, with a thatch of dark hair on his head. And his eyes… they were open. They were the same winter-sky blue as hers. They looked at me, and I felt a chill despite the heat.

‘His name is Adam,’ she said. ‘He is the first.’

Before I could ask what that meant, she raised the apron back up, and her smile faded. ‘You must not speak of him,’ she said. ‘It is not yet time.’ She turned, walked away, and disappeared into the crowd, leaving me standing there with a strange taste in my mouth, like copper.

The memory faded, as memories do, buried under school, work, the noise of a city. But last night, as the city lights flickered in the dead silence of the pandemic, it came back with a vengeance. I was scrolling through the news when I saw it: a photo from some small town’s archives, dated 1974. The caption read: ‘Mysterious infant found at fair, dubbed Adam by nurses.’ My breath caught. The face in the photo, the same eyes.

I couldn’t sleep. I spent the night digging, tracing that name. Adam. And I found a pattern. Every fifty years, in the middle of a celebration, a foundling appears, always named Adam, always found in the care of a woman in a habit. The last one was in 2024, in Morrow’s Landing. That was when I was there.

By morning, my hands were shaking. I had to go back. I booked a flight, but travel restrictions delayed me. When I finally made it, the town was a husk of itself, shut down, the streets empty. The fair had been held in the old St. Agnes Church grounds. I went there under a gray sky.

The church was boarded up, but I found a side door. Inside, the air was cold, musty. The pews were covered in dust, and the statue of the Virgin Mary was draped in a white sheet. I heard a rustle behind the altar. I called out, ‘Is anyone there?’

A figure stepped out from the shadows. It was the nun, but she hadn’t aged a day. Her face was the same, those blue eyes fixed on me. ‘I knew you’d come,’ she said. ‘They always do.’

I asked about the baby. She smiled that too-wide smile. ‘Adam is not a name. It’s a warning. He is the first of the last. When the world falls silent, he will grow. He will speak. And you will listen.’

She stepped closer, and I saw that she was not holding an apron. She was holding a little pile of rags. And from it, a tiny hand reached out, the fingers like pale spiders. ‘You are the witness,’ she said. ‘Now you must feed him.’

I stumbled back, but she blocked my path. She lifted the rags, and the thing inside stirred. I saw its face, not a baby’s face, but something older, with eyes that were endless pools of black. ‘He is hungry,’ she whispered. ‘He has been starving for centuries.’

I knew I had to run, but my legs were stone. The nun’s face began to blur, and the last thing I saw before everything went dark was the baby’s mouth, opening impossibly wide, and hearing it speak with a voice that echoed through the empty church: ‘Finally, you are here.’