Pathway to Purgatory

The Past Never Rests Quietly

Fifty years after a devastating fire destroyed a Catholic elementary school, the ashes of the past are disturbed when a luxury nursing home is built on the same cursed ground. As construction begins, buried secrets claw their way to the surface—and those involved in the project begin to unravel.

A contractor hiding a shameful truth.

A realtor forced to confront her mortality.

A desperate wife with blood on her hands.

A haunted woman guarding a decades-old secret.

And a vagrant priest who may not be what he seems.

The land remembers. The spirits awaken. And purgatory is no longer bound to the dead.

Pathway to Purgatory by Marianna Ramondetta is a gripping supernatural thriller where the sins of the past refuse to stay buried.

Dare to walk the path—read Pathway to Purgatory today.

Excerpt from the book

Fifty years ago

December 6

“Everyone please take out your arithmetic books.”

With a great deal of scuffling, thirty-two students reached inside the battered and scarred wooden desks to find the correct text.

Sister John Francis stood in front of the room, fiddling with her large silver cross. An impatient look flashed across her face.

“Boys and girls,” she addressed her sixth-grade class scornfully, “your desk should be neat, organized, and tidy. There should be no papers in your desk and your books should be stacked according to size. Valuable time is wasted every period, searching for the proper materials. God does not like us to waste time, and your guardian angels are disappointed in you.”

The student in row three, second to the last seat, found his book quickly. He slapped it across his desk, just to annoy Sister John Francis, but she had already turned away and was writing the homework assignment on the blackboard.

While the rest of the class searched for chewed up pencils and their ripped homework notebook, he didn’t bother.

Because he knew in about ten minutes, homework would be the last thing on anyone’s mind.

“Remember homework is not optional.” Sister John Francis began to circle around the classroom, walking on thick rubber shoes. “If I do not have your assignment first thing in the morning, you will stay in for recess. I know for some of the girls that seems preferable to standing around in the cold yard, dodging basketballs. However, you will not be in your cozy classroom, but in the hallway, where you will be shamed when everyone passes you in this building.”

Except tomorrow, he thought, there will be no building.

He glanced over at Mary Louise Silla. Her eyes were red from crying. She had had a fight with her twin sister, Mary Ellen. Something about a stupid tiara.

He hated the Silla twins. They were spoiled brats. They lived on the others side of town, the rich side with a house high on a hill, overlooking the valley. Pretty and wealthy, too bad that wouldn’t be enough to save them.

“All right,” Sister John Francis clapped her hands, “who remembers the rules for zeros in long division?”

Margaret marched up to the board and stood there, waving her uneven pigtails and, in a low, monotone tone did the first problem on page 89, explaining the steps in a vague, bored voice.

She was half-way through with the problem when Terrace McAndrew raised his hand and said that he smelled something.

“Never mind smelling.” Sister John Francis gave him a single, sharp glance. “Pay attention. If I recall, you got a 33 on your last arithmetic test!”

Terrace McAndrew hung his head in humiliation.

Margaret Ellen continued to explain and, when she was done, Sister John Francis reached for her perfectly scripted name cards and called Hilda Higgins to the board.

Hilda shuffled up to the head of the class, her face red with embarrassment, her hands groping for the chalk.

Sister John Francis folded her arms on top of her white starched bib. “Well,” she said, “Were you paying attention?”

Hilda nodded weakly.