Stony River (22 page)

“Have a good Easter?” she asked.

He shrugged and gave her a tight smile. She remembered, then. His wife had died only a few months before. And he might not even be a Christian. She felt terrible. To mask her embarrassment she plucked a bottle of something called Silk Magic from a stack on the counter. “Is this new?”

He closed the freezer and came to where she was standing, assaulting her nose with his sharp vinegary smell. “Ja, for fine ladies like you.” His gray teeth grinned at her. He took the bottle and pulled his glasses down to read the small print. “Says it vill double ze life of nylon hoze. Guaranteet.”

“Really? I could use that.” Mother had said Linda would have to buy her next pair of stockings with her allowance. A detergent that doubled their life would be a smart investment. Taking the bottle from Rolf, she moved to the back where glass jars of penny candy rested on their sides, their mouths wide open. She wanted to resist since she was finally getting a shape, but the Hershey kisses, wax lips, candy corn, licorice babies and banana chews cried out like orphaned children: Take
me
, take
me
. She didn't hear Rolf come up behind her. She jumped when he said, “Take vhat you like, no charch.” He handed her a paper bag.

“I couldn't. I mean, I want to pay.” She set the Silk Magic on the floor, took the bag and dropped in a few licorice babies, but she felt uneasy. She heard him breathing behind her.

He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “You like me, Linda?”

“Well, sure,” she said, standing frozen, staring ahead at the jeering mouths of the jars, praying for the bell over the door to ring and to hear Richie's “What's up, buttercup?”

“Den how about a kiss.” Rolf gripped her shoulders, turned her to him and kissed her with hard dry lips.

She pulled away, her cheeks hot with shame.

“Ach, now you madt at me.” He pouted like a little boy.

“No,” she lied.

“Den kiss me again.” He tapped his lips with a finger.

Linda shook her head.

He bent down and picked up the Silk Magic. Held it out. “Take it. Show you not madt.”

It was wrong to hurt someone's feelings. She mumbled her thanks, set the bag of licorice on a jar and hurried out the door. She took refuge in her room, rehearsing what she'd say when Daddy got home. At dinner, she related what had happened.

“Did you say anything to encourage him?” Mother asked.

“No.” Should she have said she
didn't
like him?

“Did he hurt you?” Daddy asked.

“Not really.” His hands had dug into her shoulders.

“Well, then,” Daddy said, “try to understand how lonely he's been since his wife died.”

That night she took the bottle of Silk Magic and hid it deep in her closet.

APRIL 30, 1956
. Miranda approaches Mother Alfreda's office, expecting another lesson in the distressing lives of Catholic mystics. Instead she finds Cian perched on the edge of the desk, the reverend mother's solid arm protectively around his waist. Heat deserts her body and her feet freeze to the office threshold. Cian is not scheduled for a visit. Has he been adopted and brought in for a last goodbye?

“Hurry,” Mother Alfreda says. “I've forgotten how squirmy two-year-olds are.”

Cian holds out his arms. “Mandy!” Miranda saw him only a few weeks ago, but he grows so quickly, he's a different child each visit.
His spine seems straighter today and his tummy less rounded. A little boy, not a baby, in green corduroy overalls and striped shirt.

She forces her throat to move. “Is something wrong?”

Mother Alfreda's mouth is stern but her narrow gray eyes look amused. “It depends on your point of view. The foster parents claim he's overly resistant to toilet training. They've returned him as they would a defective toaster.”

A rush of warmth. The Voice of James saying,
There are no coincidences
.

“For good?” Miranda asks.

Mother smiles broadly now. “Yes, Daughter. Now please”— she nods toward Cian—“relieve me. No lesson today. I've told the nursery you'll be delivering him and likely spending the rest of the day there, helping him get reacquainted.”

Miranda sweeps Cian up in her arms and buries her face in his sweet neck. The Voice reminds her that today is Bealtaine, the day April steps aside for May. The third anniversary of Cian's conception, a date deliberately chosen so that he might be born with the lambs on Oimelc in February, the same day Father Shandley calls Candlemas and wears violet. The Daily Missal says Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the temple that day because he, as their firstborn son, had to be offered up to God then bought back with five shekels. Miranda had only prayers and tears to buy back her child.

That must have been enough.

TEN

JUNE 6, 1956
. Two months ago Miranda was overwhelmed by the sweeping changes Mother Alfreda wrought after Danú's appearance and felt like an exiled misfit. Now, she treasures her isolation and the grudging respect her novitiate-in-waiting status gets from some inmates. The nursery sisters seem to take her right to be with Cian more seriously since she was issued different clothes. Doris says the brown tunic and black tights make her look like Cinderella before the fairy godmother.

Once a week Mother Alfreda tries to guide Miranda into a trance state. Last week she had her gaze at a crucifix because, hundreds of years ago, Christ had visited mystic-turned-saint Margaret Mary with his hands and feet bloodied as if he'd just fallen off the cross. Today Miranda's eyes fix on a globe on Mother's big desk because a saint named Catherine saw Mary standing on top of the world. Miranda focuses on the tiny splat called Ireland, the place of James's birth, where time happens five hours before it does at St. Bernadette's. Mother Alfreda has instructed her to stare at the globe in hopes she'll go into a trance long enough to entertain another holy visitor or to glimpse, as Mechthild of Magdeburg did, the “Eternal Hatred” of Hell.

The prospect makes Miranda shudder. She has no desire to wear a girdle of thorns, drive nails into her hands or be put in chains and fed
to wild beasts. She doubts she has ever once glowed “with a devout and holy love,” as Saint Augustine said every good Catholic should. What if she's a fraud? Danú has come to her only the once. Perhaps it
was
only a dream.

A warm breeze ushers in the Voice of James.
Allow it could be
.
The globe has a story to tell. Become one with it to hear.

Mother Alfreda's moldy smell wafts across the desk.

The Voice says:
To begin, explore every inch of the globe with your hands. Then close your eyes and see with your heart and your mind all your fingers have felt.

Miranda caresses the globe, her fingertips climbing the Alps and crossing the equator. She closes her eyes.

“Inhale deeply for a count of six,” Mother says, her voice an extension of James's, “then exhale for six. Repeat until your mind is lifted up and free.”

The Voice says:
Repeat until your mind enlarges the globe enough to enter it
.

Miranda breathes in and out, over and over, until her body feels no more substantial than a hum and is oblivious to the stiff wooden chair holding it. She breathes in and out until the circle under the North Pole turns into quicksand and swallows her whole.

The globe is hollow and hot. Miranda stands in the center, balancing as though on a ball, her feet in constant motion. Her fingers traverse the inner shell, feeling the shape of the continents and seas. The world appears seamless, a wondrous notion she contemplates until her lungs constrict from lack of oxygen. She looks up; the North Pole is too high to touch. If she leaps toward it she may lose her balance. She stretches out her arms. Her hands scrabble for another exit and her breath quickens in mounting panic. Hearing muffled voices, she calls out for help, further depleting the air. Her tunic is soaked in sweat now and she feels woozy. The voices get louder. “Reanimate,” says one. “Wiggle your fingers and toes,”
another. Miranda does and, with a loud crash, the globe rolls over the edge of the desk.

Later, after Sister Nurse pronounces Miranda's pulse and heartbeat back to normal, the reverend mother sits by Miranda's infirmary bed and asks her to describe what she saw, searching for clues that the mysterious voices might have been divine personages. She seems dejected that God did not forecast the end of times nor Mary appear with a message.

The Voice whispers:
Trying to meet the gods leads you to miss the message. You sensed the trapped and isolated feelings of the sister from whom Mother Alfreda borrowed the globe; you learned that objects retain the energy of those who own them and transfer knowledge to those sensitive enough to receive it
.

Miranda recoils at the possibility that she entered a sister's feelings uninvited. Is that not as rude as eavesdropping?
Not for the mother of a divine child,
the Voice responds.
To keep him safe you must read the world around him.

Mother Alfreda stands and presses a hand on Miranda's forehead. “You don't seem feverish, but I'm uneasy with what I've observed today. You are not to enter another thing, if indeed you entered that globe as you claim. You must conserve your mystical energy for divine visitations. Keep yourself open to that and nothing else.” She crosses herself and leaves.

THE VOICE TELLS MIRANDA
she has the potential to surpass James's abilities—an irresistible challenge. When Sister Nurse is asleep, she practices on objects she can spirit away for a while: Sister Celine's fountain pen; a stamp pad Sister Theodore has handled. Because she sees only images of fractured tales she can't confirm, she brings Doris into her confidence and enters items Doris brings her. A skeptical Doris acknowledges that it is more than coincidence when Miranda “hears” a conversation she had with her mother and “sees” Carolyn fall
off the backyard swing. She brings Miranda a newspaper story about a missing girl but Miranda detects no energy of the girl in it; that seems to suck the air out of Doris and disappoint her terribly.