Dan glanced at her. “Well...”
“Quite sure, Mr. Cassidy.” Carrie extended her hand. “Thank you for your assistance.”
“Not at all, Mrs. Ferris. Just remember, your crate’s got to be at Dublin harbor the morning after tomorrow, six sharp or, believe me youse, she’ll miss the loading and then God knows when she’ll get to New York.”
“We’ll be there.”
“I hope so, ‘cause I’m washing me hands of it now.” He glanced at his watch. “You’ve got turty-four hours. Plenty of time. Just don’t you be getting yourself lost along the way.”
He waved and walked off.
“Now that we’ve got her,” Dan said, tapping the top of the crate, “what do we do with her? We’ve got to find a place to store her overnight.”
“Store her? We’re not sticking her in some smelly old warehouse full of rats.”
“What do you think crawls around the hold of the Greenbriar, my dear?”
She caught an edge on his voice. Not sharp enough to cut, but enough for Carrie to notice.
Things hadn’t been quite the same between them since finding the Virgin. They’d had some moments of closeness on the plane to Heathrow after out-foxing that Israeli intelligence man, or whoever he was, and some of that had lingered during the whirl of booking the shuttle to Shannon and finding a hotel room in Cork City. But once they were settled in, a distance began to open between them.
It’s me, she thought. I know it’s me.
She couldn’t help it. All she could think about since they’d set their bags down in the Drury Hotel was that crate and its precious contents. They’d had days to kill and Dan wanted to see some of the countryside. Carrie had gone along, but she hadn’t been much company. One day they drove north through the rocky and forbidding Burren to Galway Bay; on another he took her down to Kinsale, but the quaint little harbor there only made her think about the Greenbriar and worry about its voyage. She fought visions of rough seas capsizing her, of her running aground and tearing open her hull, seawater gushing into the cargo hold and submerging the Virgin’s crate, the Mediterranean swallowing the Greenbriar and everything aboard. She spent every spare minute hovering over the radio, dissecting every weather report from the Mediterranean.
Obsessed.
She knew that. And she knew her obsession was coming between her and Dan. But as much as she valued their love, it had to take a back seat for now. Just for a while. Until they got to New York.
After all, what could be more important than seeing the Blessed Virgin safely to her new Resting Place—wherever that may be?
They hadn’t made love since finding the Virgin, and she sensed that was what was bothering Dan the most. In New York they suffered through much, much longer intervals without so much as touching hands, but that was different. Here they’d been sleeping in the same bed every night and Carrie had put him off again and again. She wasn’t sure why.
After they were resettled in New York, Carrie was sure things would get back to normal. At least she hoped so. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she didn’t feel quite the same about Dan. She still loved him fiercely, but she didn’t want him as she had two weeks ago when they’d left New York for Israel.
Because right now, it just didn’t seem...right.
“We’re taking her back to the hotel with us.”
“What?” She could see his body stiffening with tension. “You can’t do that.”
“Why not? We’re paying for the room and there’s nothing that says we can’t keep a crate in it. Besides, it’s only for two nights.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
She gave him a long, level look. “I assure you, Dan, I am not kidding.”
‡
Dan slipped his arms around her waist from behind and nuzzled her neck. Carrie felt her whole left arm break out in gooseflesh.
“Not now, Dan,” she said, pulling free and stepping away from him. She pointed to the crate. Her voiced lowered to a whisper of its own accord. “Not with her here.”
Two bellmen had lugged the Virgin’s crate up to their second-floor room and left it on the floor by the window. Beyond the window the River Lee made its sluggish way to the sea.
Dan returned her whisper, Elmer Fudd style. “We’ll be vewy, vewy quiet. She’ll never know.”
Carrie had to laugh. “Oh, Dan. I love you, I do, but please understand. It just wouldn’t be right.”
He stared at her a moment. Was that hurt in his eyes? But he seemed to understand. She prayed he did.
He sighed. “All right, then, how about we go down to the lounge and see Hal Roach? He’s only down from Dublin for one night.”
“I don’t think so.” She wasn’t really in the mood for Ireland’s answer to Henny Youngman.
“How about we just go for a walk?”
Carrie shook her head. “I think I’d rather just stay here.”
Dan’s expression tightened. “Watching over her, I suppose.”
She nodded. “In a way, yes.”
“Don’t you think you might be getting just a little carried away with this, Carrie?”
Yes, she thought. Yes, I might.
But the Virgin was here, and so here is where Carrie wanted to be. Simple. She’d waited all this time on tenter hooks for the Virgin’s arrival from Haifa, and she wasn’t about to let her out of her sight until her crate was safely on board the ship in Dublin Harbor.
“I just want to stay here with her, Dan. Is that so bad?”
“Bad? No. I can’t say it’s bad. But I don’t think it’s healthy.”
He stared again, then shrugged resignedly. “All right. This is your show. We’ll do it your way.” He stepped closer and kissed her forehead. “But I do need to get out of this room... stretch my legs... maybe cross the river and grab a pint. I’ll be back soon.”
Before Carrie could think of anything to say, he was out the door and she was alone in the room.
Well, not completely alone. The Virgin was here. She knelt beside the crate and rested her head on its lid. For one shocking, nerve-rattling moment she thought she heard a heartbeat, then she realized it was her own.
“Don’t worry, Mother Mary,” she whispered to the crate. “I won’t leave you alone here. You’ve given me comfort through the years when I needed it, now I’ll stand by you.” She patted the lid of the crate. “Till death do us part.”
‡
The Judean Wilderness
“Why?”
Kesev stood atop the tav rock with the thieves’ rope knotted around his neck and screamed out at the clear, pitiless night sky. “Why do You torment me like this? When will You be satisfied? Have I not been punished enough?”
But no reply came from on high, just Sharav’s ceaseless susurrance, whispering in his ears. Not that he’d expected an answer. All his countless entreaties down through the years had been ignored. Why should this one be any different?
The Lord tormented him. Kesev was not cut out to be a Job. He was a fighter, not a victim. And so the Lord took extra pains to beleaguer him. Not that he was without fault in this. If he had been at his post when the errant SCUD had crashed below, he could have chased off the Bedouin boys when they wandered into the canyon, and hidden the scrolls before the government investigative teams arrived.
And then the Mother would still be safely tucked away in the Resting Place instead of...where?