Virgin

  Then she saw his collar. A priest.

  “Father?”

  He didn’t seem to hear. He continued forward, trembling hands folded before him as if in prayer, eyes fixed on the Virgin as his expression twisted through a strange mixture of confusion, pain, and ecstasy.

  “Puo essere lei?”

  She didn’t understand the priest’s words, but the devotion in his eyes caused her insides to coil with alarm.

  He knows! she thought. Somehow he knows!

  Sensing he meant no harm, Carrie eased aside and let him approach. Her mind raced as she watched him gaze down at the Virgin. No … obviously he meant no harm, but his mere presence was a catastrophe. No matter what his intentions, he was going to ruin everything.

  “Who are you?”

  He didn’t seem to hear, only continued to stare down at the Virgin.

  “Who are you, Father?” This time she touched his arm.

  He started and half turned toward her, tearing his eyes away from the Virgin at the last possible second. Carrie hadn’t realized how old and thin he looked until now.

  “It’s her, isn’t it,” he said in hoarse, accented English, and Carrie’s heart sank as she searched but found no hint of a question in his tone. “It’s truly her!”

  “Who do you mean, Father?” she said, hoping against hope that he’d give the wrong answer.

  But instead of answering in words, he knelt before the Virgin, made the sign of the cross, and bowed his head.

  That was more than enough answer for Carrie. She began to shake.

  I’m going to lose her. They’re going to take her away from me!

  At that moment she heard the scuff of hurried footsteps out in the old furnace room, then Dan dashed in. He skidded to a halt when he saw the figure in black kneeling before the bier, then stared at Carrie, alarmed, confused, breathing hard.

  “Hilda called me over … said there was a strange priest …” He glanced at the newcomer. “Who … how?”

  Carrie shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  Dan stood in the center of the room, looking indecisive for a moment, then he stepped forward and laid a hand on the other priest’s shoulder.

  “I’m Father Daniel Fitzpatrick, Father, associate pastor here, and I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

  The older man turned his head to the side, then rose stiffly to his feet. He stared at the Virgin a moment longer, then turned toward Carrie and Dan and drew himself to his full height.

  “I am Monsignor Vincenzo Riccio. From Rome. From the Vatican.”

  Carrie stifled a groan as she heard Dan mutter, “Oh, God. You’re the priest from the pub!”

  “You must explain this,” Msr. Riccio said, gesturing toward the Virgin. “How … how is this possible?”

  “How is what possible?” Dan said.

  The older priest raised a hand. “Please. There is no point in trying to fool me. I was touched by her, healed by her. I know this is the Blessed Mother. Do you understand? I do not believe it, think it, or feel it, I know it. What I do not know is why she is hidden away in this dingy cellar, and how she came to be here. Will you please explain that to me, Father Fitzpatrick.”

  Dan held the monsignor’s stare for a moment, then turned to Carrie and introduced her as Sister Carolyn Ferris.

  “Carrie, this is your show. What do you want to do? Whatever you decide, I’m with you all the way.”

  Carrie felt as if she were perched on the edge of a precipice … during an earthquake. Her mind was numb with the shock of being discovered. She could see no sense in lying. The monsignor already knew the core truth. Why not tell him the details.

  And suddenly hope was alive within her.

  Yes! The details. Maybe if he knew how the Virgin had been hidden away in a cave much like this subcellar room, he’d realize that she had to remain hidden … right here.

  “It began with a scroll Father Fitzpatrick received as a gift …”

  “I see,” Vincenzo said softly as Sister Carolyn finished her story, closing with the details of the cures and miracles at the soup kitchen one floor above.

  He had been too fascinated to interrupt her long monologue more than once or twice for clarifications. He had studied her expression for some hint of insincerity, but had found none, at least none that he could detect in the candlelight. And as she spoke he came to understand something about this beautiful young woman. She was deeply devoted to the Virgin. No hint of personal gain or notoriety had crossed her mind in bringing the Virgin here to her church. It had seemed like the right thing to do, the only thing to do, and so she had done it. She was one of the good ones. He sensed a hard knot of darkness deep within her, an old festering wound that would not heal, but otherwise she was all love and generosity. Had she always been like this, or was it the result of prolonged proximity to … her?

  He turned to stare again at the Virgin.

  “An incredible story,” he said into the silence.

  If I were someone else, he thought, or even if I had happened to stumble upon this little room only last week, before my encounter with the Blessed Mother, I would have said they are both mad. Good-hearted, sincere, and well intentioned, to be sure, but quite utterly mad. But I am not someone else, and I believe every incredible word.

  “Then you can see, can’t you,” Sister Carolyn said, and Vincenzo sensed that she was praying he could and would see, “that she has to remain here? Remain a secret?”

  “A secret? Oh, no. That is the last thing this discovery should be. This is the Mother of God, sister. She should have a cathedral of gold, she should be exalted as an ideal, a paradigm for a life of faith and purity.”

  “But Monsignor, that isn’t what the Apostles intended when they brought her to the Resting Place in the desert.”

  “Who are we to say what the Apostles intended? And besides, these are different, difficult times. True faith, generous and loving, seems to be on the wane, replaced by wild-eyed fundamentalist factions that call themselves holy and faithful and servants of God, yet are anything but. Think what the physical presence of the Mother of God could mean to the Church, to Christianity, to all of humanity? This could usher in a whole new age of faith.”

  “Or mean the end of faith,” Dan said.

  The statement startled Vincenzo. “Whatever do you mean?”

  He pointed to the body. “Here she is—solid, visible touchable. She cures the incurable. You don’t need to believe that—it happens. No faith is necessary when the proof is before you.”

  He was right. Was that what this was all about? The end of the need for faith? If so, it marked the beginning of…what? Peace?

  Dear Jesus, it all fit, didn’t it. It all made sense now. The discovery of the scroll, the journey of these two good people to the Holy Land, finding the remains of the Blessed Virgin, removing her from the desert, the Vatican sending him to Ireland and then New York, the apparitions, his cure, his arrival in the subcellar of this humble old church—these weren’t random events. Three times his path and the Virgin’s had crossed: in Cork City, on the streets outside, and now in this tiny room. There was a pattern here, a purpose, a plan.

  And now Vincenzo saw the outcome of that plan.

  The Virgin was to be revealed to the world. And when she was brought to the Vatican, when she joined the Holy Father in Rome, it would herald a new age. Perhaps it would signal the Second Coming.

  Philosophers and academics had been speaking of the end of history for years already. What will they say now?

  The staggering immensity of the final sequence of events that might be set into motion numbed him for a moment.

  The end of history … all history.

  But he couldn’t tell these two what he knew. At least not now. He could, however, try to reassure them.

  “There is a plan at work,??
? he said. “And we are all playing our parts. You’ve played your parts, and now I must play mine. And the Vatican must play its own part.”

  “But what if the Vatican doesn’t play its part?” she cried. “What if, instead of showing her to the world, they hide her away in one of the Church’s deepest vaults where they’ll test her and probe her and argue endlessly whether to reveal her or keep her hidden from the world? Don’t say it couldn’t happen. This may not look like much, but here at least she has some contact with the world. People are benefiting from her presence. Leave her here.”

  “I can’t make that decision.”

  “Once she gets to Rome, she may disappear forever, as if we never found her.”

  “That is absurd,” Vincenzo said.

  But within he wondered if she might not be right. He was more familiar than she with the internecine ways of the Holy See, and realized it was all too possible that the Virgin might be lost in the labyrinth of Vatican politics.

  “Please!” she cried.

  He was wounded by the tears in her eyes. How could he separate her from the Virgin? That seemed almost … sinful.

  Vincenzo shook himself. His duty was clear.

  “I’m sorry, but I really have no choice. I must report this to Rome at once.”

  Sister Carolyn began to sob. The sound tore at his heart. He had to leave. Now. Before he changed his mind.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I have the Vatican’s decision.”

  “Don’t be surprised if you find an empty room,” Father Fitzpatrick said.

  Vincenzo swung toward him. “Please do not do anything so foolish as to move her or try to hide her. I found her here. I can find her anywhere.”

  He hurried out of the room leaving behind the sobbing nun and the stricken, silent priest.

  This is the way it has to be, he told himself. This is the best way, the only way.

  Then why did he feel like such a villain?

  He would make it up to Sister Carolyn. He would see to it that she was not separated from her beloved Blessed Mother. He would convince the Holy see that Sister Carolyn Ferris must accompany the Virgin to Rome to tell her story.

  But first he had to convince the Holy See that the body in the subcellar of this church was indeed the Blessed Virgin. He could do that. They’d believe him. He’d debunked so many reputed visitations in the past that they’d listen when he told them he’d found the real thing. More than a visitation—the greatest find since the dawn of the Christian Era.

  And then it would begin.

  The Second Coming … the end of history …

  Carrie clenched her teeth and tried to rein in her emotions. What was wrong with her? She’d never cried easily before. Now she couldn’t seem to help herself.

  She’d just about regained control when Dan stepped up beside her and gently encircled her in his arms. His touch, and the depth of love and warmth in the simple gesture, toppled her defenses. She sagged against him and broke down again.

  “It’ll be all right, Carrie. We’ll work something out.”

  But what could they work out? Her worst nightmare had come true.

  She straightened and faced him. “They’re going to take her, Dan. They’re going to take her and seal her away where no one will ever see her again, where no one but a privileged few will even know she exists.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I do know that.” Anger was beginning to elbow aside the fear and desperate sorrow. “And I know we didn’t go to all that trouble to find her and bring her here just so she could be locked up in a Vatican vault!”

  “But what the monsignor said about a ‘plan’ makes sense. Don’t you feel it? Don’t you sense a hand moving the pieces around a chessboard. We’re a couple of the pawns, Carrie. So’s the monsignor.”

  “Maybe,” she said, although she knew exactly what Dan was talking about. She’d felt it too. “And maybe the ‘plan’ isn’t meant to play out the way the monsignor sees it. We can’t let the Vatican have her.”

  “How are we going to stop it? You heard what he said about being able to find her if we try to hide her. I don’t know how or why, but I believe him.”

  Carrie believed him too. Maybe it was the cure he claimed the Virgin had performed, maybe it was part of the “plan.” Whatever it was, the monsignor seemed to have been sensitized to the Virgin. He was like a smart bomb, targeted on Carrie’s dreams.

  She had to find a way to stop him.

  And suddenly she knew how.

  “All right …” she said slowly. “If we can’t hide her from the monsignor, we won’t hide her at all … from anyone.”

  “I don’t—”

  “You will.”

  Excitement and dread blossomed within her as she considered the repercussions of what she was about to do.

  She drew Dan to the Virgin’s side.

  “Will you carry her upstairs for me?”

  “Upstairs? Into the kitchen?”

  “No. Further up. Into the church.”

  Dan stood in the nave of St. Joe’s with the Virgin’s stiff remains in his arms, and tried to catch his breath. The church was locked up tight for the night, silent but for the muffled voices of the latest contingent of Mary-hunters chanting their nightly Rosary outside on the front steps. He wasn’t puffing from the exertion of carrying her up from the subcellar—the Virgin was as light as ever—but from anxiety.

  What was Carrie up to? She wouldn’t explain. Was she afraid he’d balk if she told him? No. He’d do almost anything to keep her from crying again. He’d never heard her cry before. It was a sound he never wanted to hear again.

  “Now what? Where do I put her?”

  She stood in the church’s center aisle, turning in a slow circle, as if looking for something. Suddenly she stopped her turn.

  “There,” she said, pointing to the space past the chancel rail.

  “In the sanctuary? There’s no place—”

  “On the altar.”

  Dan felt his knees wobble. “No, Carrie. That wouldn’t be right.”

  She turned and faced him, her expression fierce. “Can you think of anyone with more of a right to be up there?”

  Dan couldn’t.

  “All right. But I don’t like this.”

  He passed her and walked down the center aisle, genuflected, then stepped over the chancel rail and approached the altar, a huge block of Carerra marble. It stood free in the center of the sanctuary so the celebrating priest could say Mass facing his congregation.

  This was strange, really strange. What was this going to solve or prove? Carrie didn’t expect the Virgin to come alive or anything crazy like that, did she?

  The thought rattled Dan as he stood before the altar. His life had been so full of strange occurrences lately that nothing would surprise him.

  As he set the Virgin gently upon the gleaming marble surface of the altar, he heard a metallic clank at the far end of the church. He turned in time to see Carrie pushing open the front doors.

  “She’s here!” he heard her cry to the Mary-hunters gathered outside. “You don’t need to look any further. The Blessed Mother is here! Come in! See her! She’s waiting for you!”

  “Oh. no!” Dan said softly as he saw the Mary-hunters edge through the doors, “Oh, God, Carrie. What are you doing?”

  They crowded forward, candles in hand, hesitant at first, the curious at the rear pushing those ahead. They were older, mostly female, with a few younger men and women salted among them. Plainly dressed for the most part, but they had an eagerness in common. He saw it in their eyes. They were searching for something but not quite sure what.

  And when they saw the body stretched out on the altar they hesitated, but only for a moment, only for a heartbeat. Then they were moving forward again, surging ahead like some giant, single-c
elled organism, filling the center aisle and splashing against the chancel rail.

  Dan listened to the talk within the Mary-hunter amoeba.

  “Is it her?” … “Do you think that’s really her?” … “That’s not what I expected her to look like” … “Aren’t you forgetting the Assumption? Can’t be her” … “Right. She was assumed into heaven, body and soul” … “Besides, she looks too old, all dried up …”

  And then the crowd was parting like the Red Sea to make way for a pinch-faced old woman in a wheelchair. She wore a fur cap despite the heat and was propelled from behind by a burly orderly in whites.

  “Let me through.” The woman swung her cane before her to clear the way. “I’ll tell you if it’s her or not, but I can’t see from back here.”

  Her orderly wheeled her up to the brass gates of the chancel rail and she stared across at the altar.

  Over and over Dan hear voices murmur, “What do you think, Martha?” and “Martha will know,” and “What does she say?”

  Apparently this Martha was an authority of some sort among the Mary-hunters.

  “I …” she began, then stopped. “This shouldn’t be but … Get me closer, Gregory.”

  Her dutiful orderly unlatched the chancel gates and pushed them open. Dan didn’t want them in the sanctuary and was stepping forward to stop him when he felt a restraining hand on his arm.

  Carrie was beside him.

  “Wait. Let her look.”

  Gregory wheeled old Martha through the gates and parked her next to the altar where she was almost eye level with the Virgin. She peered closely through her bifocals, then, tentatively, she reached out and brushed the Virgin’s cheek with her fingertip.

  “Oh!” she cried and threw herself back in her chair as if she’d received a jolt of electricity.

  Behind her Gregory stood with hands clasped behind his back, unprepared for the sudden convulsive movement. Martha and her chair went over backward.

  A moment of mass confusion in St. Joseph’s with people shouting and crying out in alarm, and then utter silence as Gregory righted the chair, turned to lift Martha back into it, and froze.