“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-celled 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.
Martha was standing beside him.
Dan couldn’t tell who was more surprised—Gregory or Martha.
The old woman looked down at her newly functioning legs and screamed. Pandemonium reigned then as the rest of the Mary-hunters added their own screams to hers, surging forward, surrounding the joyfully weeping Martha and the altar with its precious burden.
When a modicum of control was finally restored, the Mary-hunters knelt as one and began to recite the Rosary.
Their hunt was over.
Dan felt Carrie squeeze his arm. He turned and saw her tight grin, the fierce gleam in her eyes.
“Let the Vatican try to keep her a secret now!”
MIRACLES IN MANHATTAN
“We’ve had many healings,” Martha Harrington announced to reporters from the front steps of St. Joseph’s church on the Lower East Side yesterday.
Mrs. Harrington should know. Three days ago she was wheelchair bound, barely able to stand without the aid of two canes, and even then for only a minute or so. Now she breezes up and down the steps of St. Joseph’s like a teenager. She is reportedly the first miracle cure associated with the mummified body on display within the church.
The body, which the faithful proclaim to be the earthly remains of the Virgin Mary, appeared on the altar of St. Joseph’s three nights ago during a prayer vigil on the church steps. Since then it has become an object of worldwide devotion and the center of a storm of ecclesiastical controversy. So far, the Archdiocese of New York has had no comment on the healings other than to say that the phenomena are under investigation.
“Not everyone is healed,” Mrs. Harrington said. “We can’t explain why some are healed and others are not. It would be presumptuous of me to try. ‘Many are called but few are chosen,’ as the saying goes.”
Obviously, Martha Harrington sees herself as one of the chosen.
(The New York
Times)
IN THE PACIFIC