Theresa Da Priera, aka Nun Tess

Nun Tess was the tough catholic sister who abducted the Beast at her birth on the 6th of June 1996 with Father Williamson. She is the one that took charge of her care up until It-666 was five years old. On the fifth birthday of the Beast, she was killed ruthlessly before her by men paid to abduct the child.

We do not know much about Nun Tess apart that the Portuguese was some sort of surrogate mum to It-666, one that would exorcise ‘the child’ every night. Tess was almost the first contact of the Beast with a human if we remove the hands of father Arthur Williamson who assisted at her birth and put her in the Nun’s arms, still with an umbilical cord attached to her demonic goddess of a mother to be cut.

Tess is a nun on a mission to save humanity like Father Williamson whom she takes orders from. Like him she is a fervent Christian. Like him and other catholics, she participated in cursing the Beast whilst still in the belly of Lilith. They cursed the Beast to have a heart, not in the physical organ aspect but in the moral sentiments one. They succeeded as It-666, ‘The child’ as Tess calls her, shows signs of having a good sensitive heart.

The nun educate It-666, teaching her how to read and write. The Beast’s school books have the delicious irony of being the bible and the lives of Saints. Bright, she learns abnormally fast. The Child also possess a characteristic which unsettles the nun slightly, she has the capacity to express herself in any language. She seems to know all of them without having to study them.

Tess is a strong character who did influence It-666 from an early age. Despite the demonic capacities of the child, she impressed on her enough to be good and to fight her demons.

The Tutor, when he first learnt of the existence of the Beast, and where It was hidden, went with the firm intention of killing Eremiel’s child. However as he observed Tess and her interactions with the Beast, he realised the good work the humans had done in cursing her and raising her up. It was not necessary to erase the Beast from the surface of the Earth. His intentions then changed to strengthen the work of the nun and secure the Being of It-666 on her path of remaining good.

Tess had achieved something important by her looking after of the Beast. She helped determine her sweetly strong character that aimed to stay good. If the curse sowed the seeds by giving a heart to the child of evil. The nun cultivated that heart to make it go in the right direction. All the Tutor had to do, was adding his support to the young tender Being.

The name of the character was created in reference to my own ancestors and family. However it is a blend of a few individuals within it. Therese is the first name of one of my aunts, widow with five children, she had an endless energy to bring up her children. She was a tower of strength for them, like Theresa is taking on the responsibility of raising up the little Beast. For Da Priera, my grandfather was Portuguese, and I used part of the surname of his mother which was Jesus Da Priera. The fact that Tess is from Portugal is not a mystery. It is a wink to some of my roots. As for the fact that she is regarded as a Saint by the Angels, that she has that strong religiously soldiering persona about her, was inspired by Ste Marie Madeleine Postel who is one of my ancestors. I would say that Nun Tess character has been composed to show a strong woman, with deeply rooted religious beliefs. Nothing scares her, she will attempt to thwart the evil plan of Eremiel with his conception of the Beast, by insuring with others that she is born with a heart. Then she will cultivate that heart, by raising ‘It’. The simple human answer to ‘It’ is just ‘Love’. With love, you resolve everything, with hate you destroy all that lives. The entire saga contains that message and statement.

Now what happens in the early years of the Beast, from her conception to when we meet her in book one of our Saga, ‘Finding It-666’, age sweet sixteen, in her cage under a pentagram, will be released in a prequel trilogy. So Nun Tess will be seen again big time, as one of the main characters of the prequel.

Until we meet her again, let’s travel back in time and get a good glimpse of her,

Death followed the gliding Tutor across the clearing where he pointed to him the path of the great deer. An untouched snow was glistening under the last rays of the cold afternoon sun for him to acknowledge. Walking behind the fast moving Being Azryel was eager to discover more. Soon they reached a little log cabin in the midst of the wood, the Being pointed to a nun and a priest carrying an infant in his arms, walking silently in the snow towards the cabin. The Tutor announced to It and Azryel,
-This is the arrival of It-666. She is just six month old. The priest holding her tight is Father Arthur Williamson, and the nun is Sister Theresa Da Priera. Both were there at the birth of the child. Take a closer look at It. Remember, none can see you.
Death approached to be at arm distance only from the priest and watched in wonder. The baby was extremely beautiful with a head covered by lovely blond curls, like a cherub, yet as she opened her eyes staring right at him the picture perfect was immediately destroyed. She had deeply black and braising demonic eyes. She blinked a few times, smiled at him then waved, blabbering,
-Az, Azry, Az.
The priest thrust her back more closely into his chest, telling to the Sister,
-She is seeing things again. Let me warn you Tess that you will never be completely alone with her. Spirits, demons and ghosts will be surrounding you at all times.
To which the nun replied shrugging her shoulders,
-Well any entities better be warned I will not suffer their presences around the little one. I will exorcise them all.
The Tutor put his hand upon Death’s arm recalling him,
-Lets move on to another chapter of It’s childhood. The child saw you somehow. You don’t want to be exorcised, do you bad spirit?
Azryel smiled sarcastically, as he answered,
-How would you know if I was a bad spirit? Anyhow I can not be erased for I do the erasing in every World.
(verse 31: The Tutor)

They witnessed the special toddler as she found a lark lying lifeless on a layer of leaves. Carefully picking the little song bird up within her baby hands, she considered it attentively. A few pokes from the child had no effects. She kissed tenderly the feathers and ran back towards the cabin with her new found feathery treasure. She showed her find to the Sister who was cutting wood into logs with a large axe. The nun Theresa rose her eyebrows and scolded her, -No, child, you can not bring every dead thing in the house. We have a garden now filled of those dead animals. If you ever bring me a live creature I may let you keep it as a pet, but that would imply you looking after it and caring for all its lifetime and at three, I doubt you are up to it right now. Did you kill that one or found it like that?
The toddler blabbered away,
-Like that. I heard it sing. In the morning. Every morning singing song. Nice. I want the little bird back.
Theresa dropped her axe by her side and held the child’s hands together, enclosing the lark within. She stated,
-The little bird flew away into the spirit world. Maybe it was its time, maybe it had an accident. The wind was powerful last night. Who knows. Feel its cold breast, its little heart has stopped. It means is life is totally over and will not sing anymore, despite us wanting it to do so. It passed away to our great sadness but maybe it made babies this year, who will sing next year.
The little It-666 started crying gently her baby blood tears, and mumbled,
-I wanna hear his babies but I wanna hear him too. I wanna hear his little heart again. I wanna have him all back and alive.
The Sister took back her axe, lifted it and told,
-Cry all you want, child. It is life. With life comes an inevitable death. And all your wants and 'wanna' can do nothing about it.
The young curly blond girl pouted. She shook her head, spoke in tongues for a minute then reverted back to the human language for the benefit of the nun, in her strangely odd voice,
-I can do something. For all I want I can. Heart means life you kinda said. Watch.
Theresa dropped her axe at once and her hands went to join the ones of the toddler upon the bird, giving her most disapproving look. She scolded,
-Think before you do anything, child. A heart can beat with its spirit gone. Without its spirit the lark will be a living shadow. Its songs will ring into our ears every morning soulless.
It-666 smiled brightly at the nun. She stroked the lark upon her own heart and whispered,
-I can feel what you mean. It is not far away. I can catch it back too. I got it. I got it right there with the heartbeats.
She opened her hands to release a living lark. The bird flew to a tree nearby, sang beautifully before flying back to the child landing on her shoulder. The Sister muttered to herself,
-I will be damned, the child Antichrist can make miracles, age three.
Death looked at the Tutor for answer yet he was enjoined to keep his whole attention upon the scene,
-It is far from over.
Azryel saw the toddler running to the garden plot by the cabin. There she dug and unearthed dead animals. One by one she raised them all from their dying state back to the living. When all were running happily around her, she laughed out loud and tried to reassure the deeply worried and baffled Sister,
-They are all good. They are all okay, they all got their souls back too.
(verse 32: Soulful Singing Lark.)

Azryel focused back upon the scene as he saw Sister Theresa opening one window of the cabin happily, humming a joyous air. Death recognised the ‘Do-Re-Mi’ tune of the ‘The Sound of Music’ film and sadly shook his head when he saw the doomed human putting a strawberry cake to cool upon the window sill. He whispered to the Tutor,
-The strict nun loved the child. She was celebrating her fifth birthday. I understand they hardly had any food yet she managed to get enough to bake a cake and finishing it off by using strawberries from their small garden.
The Beaming Being replied,
-They looked after each other. The ‘child’ remained the child for the nun. Sister Theresa did not enforce upon It-666 a monstrous identity. She treated her as a child first and foremost, a special one that needed to be told upon not to make zombies in the garden patch. Yet she tried to educate her too, like any child to write and read. She realised soon enough the ‘child’ already knew that, and more frighteningly so she knew it in all languages, alive or dead. Tess exorcised the child every evening since she was one. It worked like a favourite bedtime story to the young impressionable Beast. It made her fight her own evil every night before she could rest peacefully exhausted. Fight against Evil was impressed upon the child first and foremost by Tess. In the young It-666’s heart, Sister Theresa is her mother, adoptive and all encompassing of her all specialness. Yet Theresa failed to name the child as she dreaded the day, she would be snatched from her. She expected it to happen. She always thought she would never survive the grief of it. She did not. Watch.

Four men ran within the woods towards the small cabin, fast and fully armed.
The young Beast in her river lifted her head up, shivered all over, the fish within her palms was charred to death. She ran as fast as she could towards the cabin.
When she arrived upon the scene, Sister Theresa had a colt pointed to her head, with four men harassing her. She could not stand the rib cage battering inflicted upon her guardian and shouted to the aggressors,
-I am here. Come and get me.
One staid by the nun as three went to grab the child. Although It-666 went straight to the man holding the colt and no one could stop her.
Theresa pleaded,
-Run away, child. Do not fight. Run away from it all.
The man shouted to the nun,
-Shut up, Bitch! No running away on my watch.
He pulled the trigger of his colt.
Tess closed her eyes, blood pouring from her forehead covering them and whispered her last words, before falling lifeless in front of her,
-Run, far and you will see One’s way. Run far away.
It was not to be so, as when the child reached her she enclosed the Sister within her small arms and cried out,
-No……………
The man holding the gun met her braising black demonic eyes just once before bursting into a living human flame. As she turned around to ran away, It met the three others, and her straight look within their eyes sent them bursting into flames likewise. She ran past them further and further away from the fire she was leaving behind her. Her eyes were covered by blood tears, she could barely see her way forward. She started shivering all over as she jumped streams and bushes, as an understanding reached her that she had burned those murderous men alive just by looking at them. The more she trembled, the more she felt the ground below her tremor. It was getting worse the further she went. The sky was dark at three. An electrical storm flashed lightnings by her path, splitting trees until she reached a clearing where the sun seemed to be there despite it all. Breathless she ran to a Being sitting peacefully upon a dead log. He opened his arms wide opened and received her. Patting her back, he started singing to her something she had heard before. It soothed her slowly but surely. The quake by her feet ceased altogether as she fell upon her knees by the Being. She asked him breathless,
-Are you the One? I need to run a bit more if not.
The Being stroked her cheek gently, answering,
-You will always be a runaway, child. Tess called me to look after you, to keep an eye on you for a while longer and forever.
She smiled to him and just collapsed at his feet.
(verse 33: Tess’s Death)