The middle one was newly made and the lid was on it. The other two were old and the wood was rotten and crumbling. Inside each of them was a skeleton. The skull of the one next to my chair had vestiges of long black hair.

The General raised his hand and an elderly man wearing priestly vestments came forward and began a kind of Mass. The rest of the congregation knelt down.

“I came from the altar of God to the altar of my Master,” the priest chanted. He was speaking Latin but I understood him. He continued with the opening prayers that I now know were perversions of the rite Maggie Caine was familiar with when she was young.

When the time came for the Offertory of the Mass, two women moved forward. One was the white-­haired woman I had previously recognized. The other was her daughter, my great-­granddaughter. They walked around the altar, paused and bowed before the General and me, and then reverently they lifted the lid of the middle coffin. Inside was the body of my great-­great-­granddaughter. It was clothed in black as I was, and as were all the members of the congregation.

“Master, we offer thee this child. Let her be united with thee,” the women chanted to the General. Then, turning to me, “Mother, we offer you this child. Let her be born again, if it be your will and the Master’s will. Let her be born again, as you have been born again to serve the Master.”

Then I stood up and stepped forward. I knew I was supposed to do that. The two women began to undress me, and at the same time several other women came out of the congregation. The first was carrying a basin of water and a towel. The others were carrying bottles and jars. I knew they were to prepare me for the climax of the ceremony in which the General and I would couple on the altar.

They bathed me and anointed me with various kinds of ointments and fragrances. Then another woman came forward, carrying a black velvet robe embroidered with gold. She was a small, dark old woman with wrinkled cheeks, and she went behind me to help put on the robe. After she had tied the sash, she held her right hand up before my eyes. In her palm was a small silver medal.

“Begone, unclean spirit,” she said loudly. “I command you in the name of the Mother of God!”

Several of the others grabbed her and pulled her away from me, but she continued to hold the medal up and shout the same denunciation. The General remained seated, seemingly unaffected by the disturbance.