Cradle and All Page 15

  “Colleen Galaher, I’d like a word with you,” the priest said in a tender tone. “Please. Come inside the rectory. It’s important that I talk to you.”

  He turned and, with a nod, dismissed the nun. He showed the girl into the rectory, and he closed the heavy wooden door behind him.

  “What is it, Father? Is it word from Rome? Has there been a decision?”

  Colleen’s heart beat faster as she entered the musty and darkened room. She lifted her face toward the priest, anxiously awaiting his instructions. She was wide-open, vulnerable, in love with God.

  The priest reached out a long-fingered hand and grazed her cheek with it. His touch seared her skin.

  “You’ve done nothing wrong, my child. You’re a beautiful, beautiful woman now. There’s nothing wrong in that.”

  Father Flannery reached out both hands and he cupped her breasts.

  Colleen gasped and clasped herself across the chest. She stumbled backward against a hassock and barely caught herself from falling.

  “No,” she whispered. “Get away, get away! You’re a priest. I’m pregnant.”

  “But I love you,” Father Flannery said. He was quicker than the awkward, gravid teenager. He reached for her, pulled her face toward his, pressed his lips against hers. Again her flesh burned at his touch, as if his lips were fiery irons.

  “Nooooo!”

  She pulled back and stared at him. Just stared. He stopped suddenly. The priest began to moan and whimper.

  Colleen twisted free of his grasp. She whirled, burst through the narrow doorway, and out into the dusty soil of the village square.

  Rude noises erupted again. Hoots and jibes fell around her like hailstones. A half-dozen or so villagers had already gathered outside. Word had gotten around that she was in town.

  “She has no right to be inside the church!” a woman called out. Then they all joined in. “Not in our church! Not in our church.”

  A young boy picked up a stone and threw it at her.

  Colleen tried to run, but she couldn’t. It was too dangerous and she would never risk hurting the baby. She stumbled and lurched through the crooked streets.

  This was so unfair, so unjust. She wondered if Mary of Nazareth had suffered the same insults and cruelty, and Colleen was sure that she had. Even Joseph, Mary’s betrothed, didn’t believe in her at first.

  “I am what I say,” she sobbed, “a virgin with child.”

  And on the way home, the birds were back in the sky again — protecting her.

  Chapter 74

  I SLUMPED INTO the deep leather backseat of the chauffeur-driven sedan. A tight fist of tension had burrowed into the small of my back, and my daylong headache was pounding furiously behind my eyes.

  I found myself thinking of Colleen Galaher marking time in the hovel she called home. Kathleen — wherever she was with Father Rosetti — was counting down the hours as well. After the births — what?

  As our car flashed through the dark, silent countryside toward the village of Chantilly, I replayed the falling, tumbling body of Ida Walsh. I could still hear her final screams. I had never killed anyone. I never believed that I would, not even when I was with the Boston police.

  The image of Ida Walsh’s broken body on the flagstone patio of Sun Cottage was a nightmare to me. I heard Father Rosetti’s explanation. “The Devil,” he told me, “is irresistibly drawn to Kathleen. Anne, I don’t know why that is so. Not yet. Satanas Luciferi excelsi.”

  What did he mean by “the Devil will be exalted”? Where? When? How did he know this? The Vatican was famous for its secrecy, and Rosetti was obviously a skilled practitioner of the art. What secrets did he know?

  I looked away from the hypnotic smoky gray highway. Thick glass separated Justin and me from the driver, a silent, thick-necked man in the traditional peaked black hat. Who was he? How could we be sure that he could be trusted? It seemed appropriate to feel paranoid about everything. If Mrs. Walsh could suddenly become possessed, then it could happen to anyone . . . even to Justin or me.

  Satanas Luciferi excelsi.

  “I know what happened today.” Justin came out of his reverie and spoke. “Emotionally, though, it’s like action in a dream. It couldn’t have happened, but I saw it.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Everything feels bizarre. I have that same thought fifty times a day. Continually. I was brought in to expose a hoax, to be a paid skeptic, but I find that I can’t anymore. I can’t deny what I’ve seen with my own eyes, what I’ve done with my own hands.”

  Justin rubbed his palm over a day-old beard that I kind of liked. He had dark pouches under his eyes, and I’m sure I looked no better. I couldn’t imagine anyone whom I would rather be with now. We’d been together through the most terrifying times, and it had gotten us very close in a short period.

  “What’s happening reminds me of the way it was when we were children growing up in Cork. No one in authority would ever answer our questions. About anything. We were always kept in the dark.”

  I nodded my agreement. “Children often experience life as magical — but also threatening.”

  “Life is,” Justin said, “both of those things.”

  I reached out, took his hand, and held it until we arrived.

  And I thought to myself, The hand of a priest.

  Chapter 75

  I AWOKE WITH A start, wondering where I was, and then I remembered that we were in another of the Beavier cars. It was dark outside, and the fog had grown thick, obscuring everything beyond the car’s headlights as we sped through the French countryside. What were we doing here? What was happening?

  We were going very fast, too fast, and I dug my nails into Justin’s arm. He was unresponsive, as if his mind was very far away. I took a moment to study his face and felt another swell of tenderness. I couldn’t help wondering again how the two of us fit into the mystery.

  We were headed to a safe house that had originally been chosen as the site of Kathleen’s delivery. It was a gentleman’s farm belonging to Henri Beavier, Charles’s younger brother, who lived there with his wife and children. We were to wait for Father Rosetti’s orders once we were there. Rosetti and the Vatican were in charge now; that much was clear.

  The car slowed as it approached a row of high dark hedges, then stopped just outside the looming black iron gates. I was relieved that we’d finally arrived, but even that small burst of joy was tainted by anxiety. The large villa seemed forbidding at this hour.

  Electronic gates swung open, and as they did, a white van materialized out of the fog, brakes screeching. Then the grinding metallic sound of sliding doors.

  I saw electric blue lettering on the van’s side: GDZ-TV.

  It was an ambush and I felt outraged by it.

  Cameramen with minipacks strapped to their backs rushed headlong out of the van. At the same time, a disjointed squad of waiting reporters sprang at us from beneath a copse of shadowy evergreens.

  “They’re here! They’re here,” someone called out in French.

  There was a loud thump on the car’s carapace.

  A face pressed against my window; it was shaggy-bearded, distorted. Another face peeped into the rear window.

  “Why have you come to France? No, no, you are not Kathleen! Where is Kathleen Beavier?”

  Lights blazed from headlights and from the security lights now coming from the courtyard within the gates. Over the commotion came the bleating, looping wail of a police siren.

  The car lurched forward as our driver stepped hard on the accelerator. A reporter clinging to the hood was flung into the shrubbery.

  My eyes darted everywhere, searching for some unknown enemy. I fixed on a man who was standing calmly in the shadows. He had long black hair and wire-rimmed glasses. He was wearing a khaki coat that looked glaringly bright in the headbeams.

  I watched him flick a cigarette into the road. It made a slow, graceful arc. His calm, calculating expression was jarring. The insolent way he stared at us made me uncomfor
table as well.

  Who was he? Why was he watching the farm? I didn’t like his being here. I felt in my heart that he shouldn’t be here. The reporters shouldn’t be here either. Who had leaked the information?

  A minute later, our car was at the front door to the villa and we were being hustled inside.

  Strangers took away our coats and led us into a huge and aromatic country kitchen. There we were joined by Charles and Carolyn Beavier, who had arrived before us. We embraced like long-lost friends; we took strength from one another. We were like family.

  I wanted desperately to feel safe and warm and normal, and not to be afraid, not to be paranoid. It was a lapse of judgment — understandable, but a lapse all the same. I forgot about the darkness and the fog. I forgot about the menace outside.

  I thought only about Kathleen and Colleen, and their babies.

  Chapter 76

  FATHER ROSETTI LEANED in close to Kathleen. “Listen to me, Kathleen. Are you listening? You must listen closely now. Nothing in your life has prepared you for this. And nothing in my life has prepared me for this.”

  “That’s comforting” was all Kathleen chose to say in reply.

  “Well.” Rosetti smiled thinly. “While your attitude is certainly understandable, it isn’t very comforting to me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kathleen finally said. “I don’t know where we are, or why we’re here. I’m upset.”

  “Understood. We are where we’re least expected to be, where, hopefully, no one is looking for you. We’re here together because it’s essential that I spend some time with you.”

  “You’re investigating me, testing me?”

  “Yes, I suppose I am. I will tell you that we’re on our way to Rome.”

  Kathleen and Father Rosetti were sitting in a second-class compartment of a train leaving France, heading for Italy. So far his strategy was working — no one had spotted them. The railway was run by the Société National des Chemins de Fer Français, the SNCF. As the train bore down a blurred tunnel, the overhead lights flickered and died.

  Rosetti’s speech was uninterrupted by the dark. He didn’t even seem to notice, and Kathleen wondered if he could see perfectly in the dark. He was trying to communicate an important point, she could tell, but she was so tired and so afraid.

  Kathleen felt her homesickness as grief. She was away from home and at the same time homeless. Where did she live now? Where did she belong? And what of the baby?

  “Kathleen, please allow me to tell you one thing,” Rosetti said. “It’s something I believe, something the Church in Rome believes, something which I will ask you to try to accept on faith also.”

  “What is it, Father? I’m so tired,” Kathleen said faintly. She had to pay close attention, since his accent made some of the words difficult to follow.

  “I believe that evil is a powerful and tangible force on earth. Evil is as real as you and I are real. Even today, the Devil exists. The Devil is a brilliant imitator, Kathleen. A master of perverse mimicry. He can seem not to be anywhere, but he is everywhere!

  “Those who would deny the existence of evil — supposedly on a rational basis — are denying what they see in the world, what they hear about, what they think and feel almost every day of their lives. They are denying what they read in newspapers. Believe me, Kathleen, evil is all around us right now. I know this to be true.”

  “You’re really scaring me badly,” she said, “and I’m already so scared. I can’t bear it. I can’t listen anymore.”

  “Yes, I know.” He nodded. “But not for the right reasons, Kathleen. You must fear the Devil, not a little harmless darkness, not the words I’m saying.”

  The ceiling lights came on with a whine as the power regenerated. Kathleen stared into the priest’s dark eyes. She did believe him. She’d seen it, smelled it, felt it in the air. She was never far from evil now. Not for a minute. And she felt at the mercy of whatever or whomever laid claim to her.

  For the first time in her life, Kathleen was afraid of the Devil. She knew he was close, right there on the train. He didn’t want her to have the baby.

  Chapter 77

  COLLEEN HEARD THE DOGS barking and she struggled out of the rocking chair, where she was studying a history textbook. She had maintained straight A’s since she’d first entered school, and she saw no reason to let her grades slip, not even now. If anything, Colleen found that she learned more from her own close study of the texts than she did with the interference of her teachers’ opinions.

  It took her a moment to get to the front door, but when she did, her mouth dropped open.

  A bright orange school bus that read DUBLIN TOURS was parked in the driveway.

  People, mostly women but a few men and children, were climbing off the bus.

  One woman, blond, in a green oilskin coat, came forward while the others hung back.

  Colleen tentatively stepped onto the stone stoop.

  “Yes? Can I help you?”

  The blond woman smiled pleasantly. “Please excuse us if we’re intruding.”

  Colleen didn’t understand what was happening. “I’m sorry? Why are you here?”

  The blond woman suddenly looked embarrassed. “Oh, dear, dear. We tried to call ahead. We discovered you don’t have a phone.”

  Colleen shrugged, then she finally smiled. “Actually, we do have a phone. What we don’t have is money to pay a monthly service charge.”

  The blond woman’s smile was restored. “We’ve traveled all the way from Dublin to see Colleen Galaher. You’re Colleen?”

  “I am. None other. And why would you be coming all the way from Dublin to see me?” she asked.

  Another woman broke forward from the group standing near the bus. “My mother and my sister live in the village. They told me about your special situation. Sister Eleanor” — she indicated the blond woman — “talked to a friend of hers at your school. We’re here, well, because we believe there might be a very special birth here. In Ireland. We understand that a priest from the Vatican was at your school.”

  Colleen shook her head from side to side, but she couldn’t get angry at the very pleasant people from Dublin. Besides, she craved their company, and maybe even the attention they were giving her.

  “I’d invite you inside, but —” She gestured toward the small house.

  Sister Eleanor shook her head. “There’s no need of that. Just seeing you is enough, Colleen. This is worth our entire trip. Seeing you, hearing your voice, is our reward.”

  Suddenly tears came into Colleen’s eyes; she started to weep.

  Someone believed in her — someone finally believed.

  Chapter 78

  I WOKE FROM A deep sleep but found that I was still exhausted and could hardly move my arms and legs.

  I lay in a comfortable bed in a house in the French countryside. I thought about Kathleen and Colleen and hoped they had gotten through the night all right.

  The time was close for both of them, and I wondered if they might deliver their babies on the same day, the same hour, perhaps the same moment. I truly believed anything could happen now.

  My God, I thought to myself, I do believe. I believe.

  And at that very instant I heard a voice, not in the room but somewhere inside my head. I recognized it from a long time ago, when I’d been younger, and believed, and prayed frequently.

  It was a voice that I talked to and carried on a dialogue with in my prayers. Sometimes it seemed male, at other times female, but it was always understanding, kind, loving.

  I need your help. I spoke to this presence inside my mind. Please help all of us on this earth, but especially those two poor girls.

  Then I heard the simplest message: You must be brave and so strong now, Anne. That’s why you’re here. You are the bravest of all. You’ve been put here for a purpose.

  I listened to the words and I took comfort in them, even though I didn’t understand completely what they meant.

  For the first time in so l
ong, I believed, and I loved the feeling.

  And, I think, I was loved.

  Chapter 79

  Rome.

  A BURLY OLD MAN in a beret and navy greatcoat walked slowly down a greasy, cobbled alley off the Viale dell’ Università. The Termini, named for the train station nearby, was a restless maze of streets and alleyways. It was a wasteland of cheap rooms furnished with cots, filled with penniless immigrants.

  Feral cats were everywhere, their unblinking eyes watching from under parked cars and from the ruins of the Baths of Diocletian. They were as wily and as alert as survivors of a scourge or a war. They watched the stooped old man.

  The surrounding buildings were ponderous and depressing, as was the ugly cement cemetery filled with modern mausoleums. It was difficult to believe that anyone actually lived in this section by choice.

  The stranger stopped in front of one of the gray buildings, his eyes roaming up the soot-covered windows. He noticed a bent television antenna on the roof and a faded billboard for Cynar. He noticed the cats. The old man stiffly climbed the crumbling front steps and pulled a dangling bell.

  A stout middle-aged woman with a dragging limp finally came to the door. She held a cat in her arms.

  “Buon giorno, signora. Per favore, desidero una camera tranquilla.” (“Good day, madam. Please, I need a quiet room.”)

  Signora Ducci quickly took in the large, poorly dressed man. He was in his late fifties or sixties, she guessed. Still strong-looking. A workman, no doubt. Not likely to die during the winter, at least, thought the Italian housewife.