In Chap­ter 181 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” Sis­ter Cecile engages with Saint over a set of rosary beads, show­cas­ing their exquis­ite craftsmanship—cedar wood with black glass, craft­ed by Sis­ter Agnes, fea­tur­ing a medal of Mary Mag­da­lene. Sis­ter Cecile, acknowl­edg­ing the beads’ spir­i­tu­al sig­nif­i­cance, reflects on the nature of sin and for­give­ness. Saint’s mind drifts to Mar­ty Tooms as she reveals pho­tographs of Eli Aaron, prompt­ing Sis­ter Cecile to recall Robert Peter Fred­er­ick, an altar boy who had gone miss­ing and like­ly died.

Despite the somber news of his dis­ap­pear­ance, Sis­ter Cecile remains com­posed. When Saint men­tions the rosary beads found with the boy, Sis­ter Cecile hints at Robert’s chal­leng­ing nature and the weight of the teach­ings he received. Saint ques­tions the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing Robert’s behav­ior after over­hear­ing a con­fes­sion of an unmar­ried preg­nant woman. Sis­ter Cecile reas­sures her that no harm came to the woman, who chose not to file a com­plaint, ulti­mate­ly lead­ing to Robert’s exit from the com­mu­ni­ty.

Saint con­nects Robert to Eli Aaron, a fig­ure from the Old Tes­ta­ment known for his down­falls as a par­ent. Sis­ter Cecile elu­ci­dates Eli’s lega­cy of judg­ment and neglect, explain­ing that he faced God’s wrath for his lenien­cy with his chil­dren. Saint sur­mis­es there are like­ly many more miss­ing indi­vid­u­als asso­ci­at­ed with Eli Aaron, prompt­ing her thoughts deep­er into the past.

As Saint pre­pares to leave with the rosary beads, she is inter­cept­ed by Sis­ter Isabelle, who casu­al­ly reveals that a man recent­ly pur­chased a sec­ond set of sim­i­lar beads. Saint, tak­en aback by the men­tion of a man, instinc­tive­ly ques­tions the details, only to be fur­ther unset­tled by the rev­e­la­tion that this man had died in a hor­rif­ic inci­dent: “I set him on fire,” Saint con­fess­es, real­iz­ing the con­nec­tions between the past and present are haunt­ing­ly close. The atmos­phere thick­ens as both women grap­ple with the impli­ca­tions of the moment, cul­mi­nat­ing in a shared under­stand­ing of loss and con­fronta­tion with the spec­tral mem­o­ries of those long gone.