Miracle (12 page)

Elizabeth strolled out, holding a Christmas-tree cookie in her mittened hand. She stopped halfway to the door to lick the cookie’s frosting.

“Elizabeth,” Miriam said. “Come on.”

Sharon held the door for them, and Miriam went out, ducking her head against the driving sleet. Elizabeth dawdled after her, looking up at the sky.

Miriam waved. “See you tomorrow night.”

“I’ll be here,” Sharon said, and shut the door. I’ll
still
be here, she thought. And what if they are? What happens then? Does the Christmas pageant disappear, and all the rest of it?
The cookies and the shopping and the Senior Prom Barbies? And the church?

She watched Miriam and Elizabeth through the stained-glass panel till she saw the car’s taillights, purple through the blue glass, pull out of the parking lot, and then tried the keys one after the other, till she found the right one, and locked the door.

She checked quickly in the sanctuary and the bathrooms, in case somebody was still there, and then ran down the stairs to the nursery to make sure
they
were still there, that they hadn’t disappeared.

They were there, sitting on the floor next to the rocking chair and sharing what looked like dried dates from an unfolded cloth. Joseph started to stand up as soon as he saw her poke her head in the door, but she motioned him back down. “Stay here,” she said softly, and realized she didn’t need to whisper. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. I’m just going to lock the doors.”

She pulled the door shut, and went back upstairs. It hadn’t occurred to her they’d be hungry, and she had no idea what they were used to eating—unleavened bread? Lamb? Whatever it was, there probably wasn’t any in the kitchen, but the deacons had had an Advent supper last week. With luck, there might be some chili in the refrigerator. Or, better yet, some crackers.

The kitchen was locked. She’d forgotten Miriam had said that, and anyway, one of the keys must open it. None of them did, and after she’d tried all of them twice she remembered they were Rose’s keys, not Reverend Farrison’s, and turned the lights on in the Fellowship Hall. There was tons of food in there, stacked on tables alongside the blankets and used clothes and toys. And all of it was in cans, just the way Reverend Farrison had specified in the bulletin.

Miriam had taken the Kool-Aid home, but Sharon hadn’t seen her carrying any cookies. The kids probably ate them all, she thought, but she went into the adult Sunday school room and looked. There was half a paper-plateful left, and Miriam had been right—the kids liked the Christmas trees and Santas
the best—the only ones left were yellow stars. There was a stack of paper cups, too. She picked them both up and took them downstairs.

“I brought you some food,” she said, and set the plate on the floor between them.

They were staring in alarm at her, and Joseph was scrambling to his feet.

“It’s food,” she said, bringing her hand to her mouth and pretending to chew. “Cakes.”

Joseph was pulling on Mary’s arm, trying to yank her up, and they were both staring, horrified, at her jeans and sweatshirt. She realized suddenly they must not have recognized her without her choir robe. Worse, the robe looked at least a little like their clothes, but this getup must have looked totally alien.

“I’ll bring you something to drink,” she said hastily, showing them the paper cups, and went out. She ran down to the choir room. Her robe was still draped over the chair where she’d dumped it, along with Rose’s and the music. She put the robe on and then filled the paper cups at the water fountain and carried them back to the nursery.

They were standing, but when they saw her in the robe, they sat back down. She handed Mary one of the paper cups, but she only looked at her fearfully. Sharon held it out to Joseph. He took it, too firmly, and it crumpled, water spurting onto the carpet.

“That’s okay, it doesn’t matter,” Sharon said, cursing herself for being an idiot. “I’ll get you a real cup.”

She ran upstairs, trying to think where there would be one. The coffee cups were in the kitchen, and so were the glasses, and she hadn’t seen anything in the Fellowship Hall or the adult Sunday school room.

She smiled suddenly. “I’ll get you a real cup,” she repeated, and went into the adult Sunday school room and took the silver Communion chalice out of the display case. There were silver plates, too. She wished she’d thought of it sooner.

She went into the Fellowship Hall and got a blanket and took the things downstairs. She filled the chalice with water
and took it in to them, and handed Mary the chalice, and this time Mary took it without hesitation and drank deeply from it.

Sharon gave Joseph the blanket. “I’ll leave you alone so you can eat and rest,” she said, and went out into the hall, pulling the door nearly shut again.

She went down to the choir room and hung up Rose’s robe and stacked the music neatly on the table. Then she went up to the furnace room and folded up the folding chairs and stacked them against the wall. She checked the east door and the one in the Fellowship Hall. They were both locked.

She turned off the lights in the Fellowship Hall and the office, and then thought, “I should call the shelter,” and turned them back on. It had been an hour since she’d called. They had probably already come and not found anyone, but in case they were running really late, she’d better call.

The line was busy. She tried it twice and then called home. Bill’s parents were there. “I’m going to be late,” she told him. “The rehearsal’s running long,” and hung up, wondering how many lies she’d told so far tonight.

Well, it went with the territory, didn’t it? Joseph lying about the baby being his, and the wise men sneaking out the back way, the Holy Family hightailing it to Egypt and the innkeeper lying to Herod’s soldiers about where they’d gone.

And in the meantime, more hiding. She went back downstairs and opened the door gently, trying not to startle them, and then just stood there, watching.

They had eaten the cookies. The empty paper plate stood on the floor next to the chalice, not a crumb on it. Mary lay curled up like the child she was under the blanket, and Joseph sat with his back to the rocking chair, guarding her.

Poor things, she thought, leaning her cheek against the door. Poor things. So young, and so far away from home. She wondered what they made of it all. Did they think they had wandered into a palace in some strange kingdom? There’s stranger yet to come, she thought, shepherds and angels and old men from the east, bearing jewelry boxes and perfume bottles. And then Cana. And Jerusalem. And Golgotha.

But for the moment, a place to sleep, out of the weather,
and something to eat, and a few minutes of peace. How still we see thee lie. She stood there a long time, her cheek resting against the door, watching Mary sleep and Joseph trying to stay awake.

His head nodded forward, and he jerked it back, waking himself up, and saw Sharon. He stood up immediately, careful not to wake Mary, and came over to her, looking worried.
“Erkas kumrah,”
he said.
“Bott lom?”

“I’ll go find it,” she said.

She went upstairs and turned the lights on again and went into the Fellowship Hall. The way back wasn’t out the north door, but maybe they had knocked at one of the other doors first and then come around to it when no one answered. The Fellowship Hall door was on the northwest corner. She unlocked it, trying key after key, and opened it. The sleet was slashing down harder than ever. It had already covered up the tire tracks in the parking lot.

She shut the door and tried the east door, which nobody used except for the Sunday service, and then the north door again. Nothing. Sleet and wind and icy air.

Now what? They had been on their way to Bethlehem from Nazareth, and somewhere along the way they had taken a wrong turn. But how? And where? She didn’t even know what direction they’d been heading in. Up. Joseph had gone
up
from Nazareth, which meant north, and in “The First Nowell” it said the star was in the northwest.

She needed a map. The ministers’ offices were locked, but there were books on the bottom shelf of the display case in the adult Sunday school room. Maybe one was an atlas.

It wasn’t. They were all self-help books, about coping with grief and codependency and teenage pregnancy, except for an ancient-looking concordance and a Bible dictionary.

The Bible dictionary had a set of maps at the back. Early Israelite Settlements in Canaan, The Assyrian Empire, The Wanderings of the Israelites in the Wilderness. She flipped forward. The Journeys of Paul. She turned back a page. Palestine in New Testament Times.

She found Jerusalem easily, and Bethlehem should be
northwest of it. There was Nazareth, where Mary and Joseph had started from, so Bethlehem had to be farther north.

It wasn’t there. She traced her finger over the towns, reading the tiny print. Cana, Kedesh, Jericho, but no Bethlehem. Which was ridiculous. It had to be there. She started down from the north, marking each of the towns with her finger.

When she finally found it, it wasn’t at all where it was supposed to be. Like them, she thought. It was south and a little west of Jerusalem, so close it couldn’t be more than a few miles from the city.

She looked down at the bottom of the page for the map scale, and there was an inset labeled “Mary and Joseph’s Journey to Bethlehem,” with their route marked in broken red.

Nazareth was almost due north of Bethlehem, but they had gone east to the Jordan River, and then south along its banks. At Jericho they’d turned back west toward Jerusalem through an empty brown space marked Judean Desert.

She wondered if that was where they had gotten lost, the donkey wandering off to find water and them going after it and losing the path. If it was, then the way back lay southwest, but the church didn’t have any doors that opened in that direction, and even if it did, they would open on a twentieth-century parking lot and snow, not on first-century Palestine.

How had they gotten here? There was nothing in the map to tell her what might have happened on their journey to cause this.

She put the dictionary back and pulled out the concordance.

There was a sound. A key, and somebody opening the door. She slapped the book shut, shoved it back into the bookcase, and went out into the hall. Reverend Farrison was standing at the door, looking scared. “Oh, Sharon,” she said, putting her hand to her chest. “What are you still doing here? You scared me half to death.”

That makes two of us, Sharon thought, her heart thumping. “I had to stay and practice,” she said. “I told Rose I’d lock up. What are you doing here?”

“I got a call from the shelter,” she said, opening the office
door. “They got a call from us to pick up a homeless couple, but when they got here there was nobody outside.”

She went in the office and looked behind the desk, in the corner next to the filing cabinets. “I was worried they got into the church,” she said, coming out. “The last thing we need is someone vandalizing the church two days before Christmas.” She shut the office door behind her. “Did you check all the doors?”

Yes, she thought, and none of them led anywhere. “Yes,” she said. “They were all locked. And anyway, I would have heard anybody trying to get in. I heard you.”

Reverend Farrison opened the door to the furnace room. “They could have sneaked in and hidden when everyone was leaving.” She looked in at the stacked folding chairs and then shut the door. She started down the hall toward the stairs.

“I checked the whole church,” Sharon said, following her.

She stopped at the stairs, looking speculatively down the steps.

“I was nervous about being alone,” Sharon said desperately, “so I turned on all the lights and checked all the Sunday school rooms and the choir room and the bathrooms. There isn’t anybody here.”

She looked up from the stairs and toward the end of the hall. “What about the sanctuary?”

“The sanctuary?” Sharon said blankly.

She had already started down the hall toward it, and Sharon followed her, relieved, and then, suddenly, hopeful. Maybe there was a door she’d missed. A sanctuary door that faced southwest. “Is there a door in the sanctuary?”

Reverend Farrison looked irritated. “If someone went out the east door, they could have gotten in and hidden in the sanctuary. Did you check the pews?” She went into the sanctuary. “We’ve had a lot of trouble lately with homeless people sleeping in the pews. You take that side, and I’ll take this one,” she said, going over to the side aisle. She started along the rows of padded pews, bending down to look under each one. “Our Lady of Sorrows had their Communion silver stolen right off the altar.”

The Communion silver, Sharon thought, working her way along the rows. She’d forgotten about the chalice.

Reverend Farrison had reached the front. She opened the flower-room door, glanced in, closed it, and went up into the chancel. “Did you check the adult Sunday school room?” she said, bending down to look under the chairs.

“Nobody could have hidden in there. The junior choir was in there, having refreshments,” Sharon said, and knew it wouldn’t do any good. Reverend Farrison was going to insist on checking it anyway, and once she’d found the display case open, the chalice missing, she would go through all the other rooms, one after the other. Till she came to the nursery.

“Do you think it’s a good idea us doing this?” Sharon said. “I mean, if there is somebody in the church, they might be dangerous. I think we should wait. I’ll call my husband, and when he gets here, the three of us can check—”

“I called the police,” Reverend Farrison said, coming down the steps from the chancel and down the center aisle. “They’ll be here any minute.”

The police. And there they were, hiding in the nursery, a bearded punk and a pregnant teenager, caught redhanded with the Communion silver.

Reverend Farrison started out into the hall.

“I didn’t check the Fellowship Hall,” Sharon said rapidly. “I mean, I checked the door, but I didn’t turn on the lights, and with all those presents for the homeless in there …”