She's vaguely aware of his thrusts and groans becoming more
animated; then he hisses, "My little evil angel," just as a shudder
goes through his body. She feels a wetness between her legs and
then he rolls off her. Before she even has time to collect her
thoughts Father Angelo is standing over her, pulling her to her
feet, leading her to the toilet next to the library. "Stop crying and
wash yourself, child," he orders briskly. "And don't speak of this.
This was your sin. You will be punished for this if you tell anyone.
This must be our secret."
On trembling legs Maria walks into the toilet. She looks down
and sees two dark drops on the cold linoleum floor; then she pulls
up her skirt and sees the blood running down her leg. Numbed
and frightened she uses the towel by the sink to wash herself before
putting her panties back on. She looks in the mirror at her puffy
eyes and rinses her face with cold water, trying not to cry any
more. She can't believe what has just happened. How could
Father Angelo, one of the most senior members of God's church,
have done this? And why her? Was it somehow her fault? As she
stares at her face in the mirror she screws up her courage and
determines to tell the Mother Superior.
When she comes out of the toilet she sees that Father Angelo
has gone, and that the couch betrays no sign of his attack. With
painful steps she walks back down the stairs to the Mother Super
ior's office.
But when she reaches the open door she sees that Father Angelo
is already there, engaging Mother Clemenza in conversation. The
toad is even laughing.
For a second Maria stands in the doorway, not knowing what
to do. What has the priest told Mother Clemenza? Why is she
laughing? Then for the first time ever, the stone-faced toad turns
and smiles at her--a beaming, benign smile of approval.
"
Father Angelo said you read most sweetly. And were excellently
behaved. He recommends that you be allowed on the special picnic
tomorrow with the other girls
."
The priest turns and winks at her, putting his hand on her head,
ruffling her hair.
"Good child," he says.
Maria can't speak; her throat so tight she can barely breathe.
She feels such anger that the tears return.
The toad frowns. "Don't cry, Maria."
"But he attacked me," Maria manages through her sobs of con
fusion and rage. She pats her crotch through the front of her skirt.
"Mother Superior, Father Angelo hurt me here."
Silence. The toad turns to Father Angelo, who looks shocked,
then turns back to Maria. When the toad stands from behind the
desk and waddles toward her the nun's face is expressionless.
"What did you say?"
Maria's shoulders shake from her crying. "He hurt me here. He
attacked me."
Mother Clemenza extends her right arm toward her and Maria
instinctively leans into it, anticipating the embrace--needing this
fat old lady to hug her and tell her everything will be all right.
The slap when it comes is so shocking that although the blow
from the toad's hand hits her full on the side of her face, Maria
doesn't feel it. She is completely numb.
The toad's face is now as gray as rolling thunder. "How could
you say such a thing about Father Angelo--in front of Father
Angelo? Maria, ever since you were a small child we have endured
your fanciful stories and lies, but this...this is too much. You will
apologize to Father Angelo immediately; then you will be pun
ished."
"
But it is true
."
The toad's face is purple now. "You will apologize immediately,
or your punishment will be worse."
Maria says nothing. Nothing on earth will make her apologize.
Then Father Angelo speaks. He has a pained smile on his face.
"The poor girl is clearly disturbed and needs our help. Perhaps I
should see her on my next visit?"
"
You are too understanding, Father Angelo. Maria has always
been a liar. I fear even you can do nothing to change her ways
."
"
We can but try
."
Maria is in shock when she is led down to the old cellars. Surely
any moment now one of the nuns escorting her will tell her they
believe her, and that Father Angelo is the one who is to be pun
ished. But when she sees the steel door at the foot of the stairs she
knows it's she who is to be put in the lock-away, not him.
She's lost count of the number of times she's had to endure the
lock-away, but the first time was when she was four. That was
when, according to the nuns, she began telling her "lies." But they
weren't lies, not really--although she isn't sure anymore. As the
years have gone by, she hasn't lost her fear of being locked in the
completely dark and silent room. If anything her terror has in
creased. Although the punishment lasts only a few hours the
demons unleashed in the dark stay with her long after she's been
released.
This time as the door closes on her and Maria hears the key
turn in the lock, she knows she will be here all night. She's never
been in the lock-away longer than five hours before. Fighting back
her panic, she feels her way across the stone floor to the corner
where the small camp bed is. She lies down and curls up into a
ball, hugging her knees
to her chest, rocking herself from side to side. With wide eyes she
searches for any strand of light in the suffocating blackness.
To her surprise her fear is not as great as usual. She is so in
censed by the injustice of what has happened that her mind doesn't
take its usual dark turns. She welcomes the feelings of anger that
surge through her, and even the feelings of hate give her strength
and a sense of control. She decides then that God must surely de
mand the punishment of anyone as evil as Father Angelo, who
claims to act in his name. And for the rest of the night she plans
the punishment she will mete out on God's behalf.
T
he pain from the fourth laceration on her thigh jolted Maria out of her reverie. She looked down at the spilled blood on the towels beneath her thigh and smiled. She felt better now. The letting of bad blood had released some of the anxiety and evil feelings pent up inside her.
She wiped the dagger carefully on one of the rough white towels from the stack beneath her bed, and dabbed the four neat cuts on her thigh with surgical antiseptic. Even the sting of the alcohol made her feel more focused, more controlled. Sheathing the kukri, she lay back on the bed and calmly recapped her meeting with Bernard and Helix, and their decision to freeze her out of the Carter kill. Now that she had everything in perspective it was obvious what she should do next.
She would visit the Father and resolve this issue face to face. Then she could put it behind her once and for all.
Yes, she thought, now allowing her eyelids to exclude the comforting light. She would return to the Father and together they would make everything right again. Then, even as Maria imagined how wonderful it would be, she fell into a deep, dreamfree sleep.
FOURTEEN
GENIUS Headquarters
Boston
J
asmine wasn't as disappointed as the others sitting around the oval table in the Francis Crick Conference Room, but then, as her mother always used to tell her, disappointment hits hardest when least expected.
In the three weeks since Tom initiated Project Cana, she had done all that was expected of her. Despite her reservations she was satisfied that she could have done no more. The most advanced Genescope had been fully prepped and was now fully operational in the Francis Crick Conference Room, which along with the adjoining laboratory had been sectioned off from the rest of the Mendel Laboratory Suite. She had also searched through the entire IGOR database for individuals who might have unusual genes or a history of faith healing. A number of names had come up, but only one with a documented history. She had therefore conducted further research on the owner of that name.
Over the last two decades Mr. Keith Anderson of Guild-ford, Surrey, in England had apparently acquired a reputation for easing the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis. No cures were attributed to him or claimed by him, but there were countless testimonials from doctors and sufferers of how, just by laying his hands on inflamed joints, he could bring immediate relief. By all accounts he was the genuine
article but there were two problems: one, Jasmine couldn't find anything unusual in his genes, and two, he had died in a car crash last June and been cremated. Still, Keith Anderson wasn't the reason Tom and the others were disappointed.
Three days ago Carter and Jack had returned from Europe with their samples, and their mood had been buoyant--even triumphant. "Don't worry," Tom had said when Jasmine had told him what she'd found. "Searching IGOR was a long shot anyway." Yeah, right, thought Jasmine. As if traipsing around the world trying to find physical remains of a two-thousand-yearold corpse was a sure thing.
But now the Genescope analysis of the samples had come through. And Jasmine could see that disappointment had hit Tom hard, evaporating his early euphoria like yesterday's rain.
Jasmine glanced around the conference table. Jack and Alex sat opposite, Bob Cooke and Nora Lutz on each side of her. The blond Californian and the bespectacled lab technician still hadn't been told about Holly, but three days ago they had been given a confidential briefing on Project Cana. Both had proved invaluable in prepping the samples for the Genescope to scan. But now like everyone else around the table they were silent, watching Tom pace around the room.
Every third step Tom would look up and glare accusingly at the Genescope towering in the corner, and start to say something. Then he would shake his head and keep pacing.
If Jasmine was honest, she had mixed feelings about being unable to find rare genes in any of the samples. Naturally, she wanted to help Holly, but when she'd first seen the samples purporting to be remains of Christ she'd felt as if she was involved in some sacrilegious act. She'd dreaded having to come to terms with the possibility of Tom's thesis being proven correct. So for her at least the negative results, although disastrous, were tinged with guilty relief.
Eventually Tom spoke. "Okay. I can buy into the Michelle Pickard blood samples being bogus. Having AB blood in her veins and a different O-type blood in her wounds
was too weird anyway. And now that Jack's uncovered she's running a scam, using blood from that nurse friend of hers, we can ignore her. The other samples and stuff I can also accept. Shit, I have to." He sighed then and looked again at the Genescope, as if willing DAN to admit it was wrong. "But are we absolutely sure about the Lanciano sample? Could we have made any mistake
at all
?"
Jasmine shook her head. "We've run it three times."
"But, Jazz, the age checked out; the gender tallied. It's got to be genuine. Perhaps DAN missed something?"
Jasmine looked to Bob and Nora. Both just shrugged and shook their heads.
She said, "I'm sorry, Tom, but there's no mistake. The scan was fine. It's the sample. There are simply no remarkable genes in it. Nothing that we haven't already seen on the IGOR database anyway."
"Then it must be a fake," said Tom emphatically.
Jasmine squared her shoulders and said what she knew Tom didn't want to hear. "Unless, of course, the sample was genuine, but the healing power wasn't in his genes in the first place?"
Tom stuck out his chin, and crossed his arms over his chest. "No, Jazz. If he had these powers, then wherever he got them from they would be in his genes."
Jasmine decided not to push it and sat back in her seat, while Tom looked stubbornly around the team. He seemed to be challenging each of them to argue with him, but they remained silent. It was obvious to her that they were now a lot less sure about finding and using the genes of Christ than Tom was. Even Alex, who had supplied the lists of where to search, looked ill at ease.
They all seemed to want to accept Project Cana as the madcap idea it was and move on to another approach. But Tom clearly thought there was nothing else to move on to. It was as if he had now invested all his hopes in Cana, and believed that if he couldn't make the project succeed, then Holly would die. Once Tom had made this simple connection, Jasmine realized he had no option but to condemn the Lanciano sample as a fake.
She felt torn between the need to make him see reason,
and the desire to support him in his stubborn, doomed quest--even if she didn't agree with it. "But what can we do, Tom?" she said. "What else is there? Name it and I'll do it."
Tom stared at her for a long moment, his eyes suddenly vulnerable. "I just need one microscopic body cell that belonged to Jesus Christ. That's all."
Jack leaned forward then and said with surprising tenderness, "But, Tom, even if such a sample still exists, where and when are you going to find it?"
Jasmine watched Tom turn to Alex, who just shook his head. Her heart went out to him then. For the first time since she'd known him, her friend looked as if he didn't know what to do.
Saturday, Beacon Hill