Chap­ter 181 of All the Col­ors of the Dark opens with Sis­ter Cecile and Saint engag­ing in a qui­et, reflec­tive con­ver­sa­tion while inspect­ing a set of rosary beads. These beads, made of cedar wood and black glass, are craft­ed by Sis­ter Agnes, and they bear a medal of Mary Mag­da­lene, a sym­bol of deep spir­i­tu­al sig­nif­i­cance. As Sis­ter Cecile exam­ines them, she reflects on the nature of sin and for­give­ness, not­ing how such sacred objects can serve as reminders of these heavy con­cepts. The con­ver­sa­tion shifts when Saint, hold­ing pho­tographs of Eli Aaron, men­tions Mar­ty Tooms, prompt­ing Sis­ter Cecile to recall a fig­ure from her past—Robert Peter Fred­er­ick, an altar boy who mys­te­ri­ous­ly dis­ap­peared, his death believed to be tied to a trag­ic inci­dent.

Despite the grav­i­ty of Robert’s dis­ap­pear­ance, Sis­ter Cecile remains com­posed, offer­ing lit­tle emo­tion­al reac­tion to the sad news. Saint is fur­ther intrigued by the con­nec­tion between the rosary beads and Robert, who, accord­ing to Sis­ter Cecile, was a trou­bled young man. She learns that Robert’s behav­ior was far from ide­al dur­ing his time in the com­mu­ni­ty, which had even­tu­al­ly led to his depar­ture. Saint becomes increas­ing­ly curi­ous about a par­tic­u­lar inci­dent where a woman, who had con­fessed to being unmar­ried and preg­nant, was linked to Robert’s sto­ry, and how her refusal to press charges played a role in his exit from the com­mu­ni­ty. This qui­et admis­sion reveals a series of unspo­ken ten­sions and the com­plex­i­ties of deal­ing with moral dilem­mas with­in a reli­gious com­mu­ni­ty, where the lines between right and wrong often become blurred.

As Saint reflects on these rev­e­la­tions, she con­nects Robert’s sto­ry to Eli Aaron, a bib­li­cal fig­ure known for his lack of con­trol over his chil­dren, lead­ing to divine pun­ish­ment. Sis­ter Cecile offers her inter­pre­ta­tion of Eli’s lega­cy, explain­ing how his neglect­ful par­ent­ing caused God to show wrath upon him and his fam­i­ly. Saint, now ful­ly engaged in the nar­ra­tive, begins to see the par­al­lels between Eli’s fail­ure as a father and the mys­te­ri­ous dis­ap­pear­ances that con­tin­ue to haunt the com­mu­ni­ty, sug­gest­ing that Eli’s influ­ence may have cast a long shad­ow on many lives, includ­ing the ones she is now try­ing to unrav­el. The con­ver­sa­tion shifts between the moral fail­ings of the past and the lin­ger­ing impact these fig­ures have had on present lives, rais­ing deep ques­tions in Saint’s mind about the unre­solved tragedies that stretch across gen­er­a­tions. As the dis­cus­sion con­tin­ues, she starts to form a clear­er under­stand­ing of how past deci­sions, par­tic­u­lar­ly those made by fig­ures like Eli Aaron, have con­tributed to the bro­ken­ness in the com­mu­ni­ty and beyond.

Just when Saint pre­pares to leave, she is halt­ed by Sis­ter Isabelle, who casu­al­ly reveals a trou­bling detail—an indi­vid­ual had recent­ly pur­chased a sec­ond set of sim­i­lar beads. This rev­e­la­tion strikes Saint with a mix­ture of sur­prise and sus­pi­cion, prompt­ing her to ask about the iden­ti­ty of this man. The con­ver­sa­tion takes a dark­er turn when she learns that this man had died in a trag­ic and vio­lent inci­dent, an event that imme­di­ate­ly draws her atten­tion. Shocked and unset­tled, Saint instinc­tive­ly responds with a chill­ing con­fes­sion: “I set him on fire,” a state­ment that shocks both her and Sis­ter Isabelle. This moment of real­iza­tion is deeply unset­tling, as Saint rec­og­nizes that the events of the past are inex­tri­ca­bly linked to the present in ways she hadn’t ful­ly under­stood. The inten­si­ty of this con­fes­sion serves as a reminder that the past nev­er tru­ly fades, and the actions of indi­vid­u­als can have last­ing reper­cus­sions that haunt them in unex­pect­ed ways. The chap­ter ends with an eerie silence, as the weight of Saint’s con­fes­sion set­tles into the air, a reminder that the ghost of the past looms larg­er than she had imag­ined.

The exchange between Saint and Sis­ter Isabelle deep­ens the emo­tion­al com­plex­i­ty of the sto­ry, as they both grap­ple with the weight of their past actions. Saint’s real­iza­tion that she has been tied to these events for far longer than she could have imag­ined is a stark reminder of the con­nec­tion between past deci­sions and present con­se­quences. As the chap­ter draws to a close, the impli­ca­tions of the unfold­ing mys­tery grow more unset­tling, with Saint now forced to con­front the ghosts of her past in a way that she had nev­er expect­ed. The lin­ger­ing pres­ence of these mem­o­ries, cou­pled with the deep­er under­stand­ing of their con­se­quences, paints a dark por­trait of a woman try­ing to rec­on­cile her past with the present, all while strug­gling with the mys­ter­ies that con­tin­ue to unfold around her.