On the Third Day Read online

  “Miracles?” Quentin asked.

  “Some. Mostly, they are dreams -- dreams that good people have woven into a fabric a bit more palpable than faith and a bit too insubstantial for the Vatican.

  “A man will see the face of the Virgin on the side of his wall -- not just among knotholes that have always been there, but appearing suddenly -- and vividly. His neighbors will come and the local priests will follow. If enough of these people become convinced, it is the job of The Church -- my job -- to investigate and make a ruling.”

  Father Thomas nodded. “I’ve heard of such things, of course. Those in my parish have asked me about them, and I’ve seen articles on relics and miracles. Tell me, Donovan,” he asked, “this Virgin appearing on the wall – have you seen it?”

  Father Prescott nodded.

  “I have. It was a water spot, formed of mold and seepage where a drain had clogged and leaked. This was the rainy season. I arrived just before the summer kicked in. Two days after I’d arrived, the sun had dried all but the most vague of images from the wood. The villagers -- in particular the priest -- were upset, but I found no miracle there.”

  Father Thomas sat back heavily and let his face drop into his hands. He looked very tired at that moment, and very young.

  “So, your job is to debunk. You have been sent here to prove that what I have experienced, or what I believe I’ve experienced, is nothing more than some kind of stage trick, or fluke of nature. Figure it out, classify it, and the Church can get back to business as usual.”

  Father Prescott, suddenly angry, leaned forward and slammed his hands down onto the surface of Thomas’ desk. The young priest started up and back, shocked, and Donovan leaned in close.

  “I am here to find the truth, Quentin, whether you or the Bishop believe it. I did not come here assuming you were trying to deceive me, nor did I come here assuming divine intervention. I came here because my calling demands it. It is a part of who I am – seeking the answers to questions of faith. I told you that I’m searching for a miracle, and I meant what I said.”

  Father Thomas, contrite, leaned forward and laid his hands across the older priest’s.

  “I’m sorry, Donovan. I truly am. With all that has happened I’ve been under a lot of pressure. It’s not an excuse, I know, but it’s all I have to offer. The Bishop’s attitude hasn’t helped. I’m over-wrought and very tired.

  “Maybe if you told me about one of the miracles you haven’t lost faith in – one you aren’t certain has an earthly explanation, it would help. I could use something to bolster my faith; I’m beginning to think the Bishop is right and that it’s all somehow created in my own mind.”

  Father Prescott gathered his thoughts and nodded. He leaned back in his chair and his eyes took on a far-away, thoughtful aspect.

  Quentin leaned back in his own chair to listen. He folded his arms on his chest and turned to stare at the bookshelf lining the opposite wall. In a moment, Father Prescott began.

  * * *

  The courtyard was small, but neatly kept. There were trees surrounded by small beds of flowers, and walkways led off in several directions from the central court. By night, the stone benches and gravel walks glowed white in the moonlight, and the buildings threw long shadows to stripe the path. Father Prescott stood just beyond their reach.

  In the center of the clearing a small statue had been erected. It was the figure of a man dressed in the robes of the Dominicans. The hilt of a dagger protruded from the side of the man’s head and stone blood dripped down the side of his graven features.

  Beside Donovan, Father Fernando stood quietly. The younger priest was thin, almost skeletal, with pale skin that gleamed like the stone of the benches in the moonlight. His eyes were dark, and his longish hair obscured much of his face. He said nothing, but stood in silence, waiting.

  The statue was dedicated to St. Peter, Martyr who had visited the small chapel near Milan, Italy, in the year 1253. The story was riddled with holes and missing information, but the gist of it was simple. Brother Peter had been walking in the woods near the chapel when he was violently attacked and killed. His assailant stabbed him in the head and left him for dead.

  Before Peter died, he managed to forgive his attacker and win his own Sainthood. As he died, he wrote a final message in the dirt for all those who came after him to see. It said, simply, “I Believe In God.”

  Father Fernando had explained that the murderer was said to have been so moved by this act of charity and faith that he did not flee from his crimes. Instead he took the vows shortly after Peter’s death and became a member of the Dominican order, taking the place of the man he’d slain. It was a good story, the type of story rampant in Catholic history.

  Members of the parish gathered around the two, and Father Fernando raised his gaze to acknowledge them, nodding and motioning them to remain at a respectful distance. Father Prescott paid no attention to them at all. If he saw Father Fernando’s gestures, he gave no indication. His gaze was fixed on the ground at the foot of the statue.

  It was very dark, but even in the deep shadows Donovan saw it. First the earth, which had been as dark and still as the rest of the courtyard, took on a fogged, cloudy aspect. Something white and glowing mixed with the soil and flowed in interlocking patterns, like a snake rising to the surface. Fascinated, he took a step forward.

  Sound rose behind him, a collective sigh of indrawn breath. Feet scuffled on stone, but no one spoke. The air shivered with energy and crackled through Father Prescott’s hair. He wanted to close his eyes and pray, but he could not draw his gaze from the boiling mound of dirt.

  He dropped to his knees before the statue, and then placed his palms flat on either side of the glowing, breathing mound. He leaned in close, willing himself to be objective. He recited scripture to himself at a wild, impossible pace to distract his mind as he fought to force his heart rate back to normal. He leaned to one side, and then to the other. He thought of chemicals that might cause a reaction in the soil. He tried to imagine a mechanism, buried in the earth, that could cause the boiling, glowing mass of clay he faced off against, and came up blank.

  Father Prescott opened his mouth to speak, and then fell silent. The dry soil bubbled with liquid. It was as if a fountain had been switched on, or someone had struck an oil well and it had seeped to the surface. He couldn’t make out the color – it was far too dark. He knelt in silent wonder as the blood – he knew it was blood, but could not have told how he knew – receded slowly. It drained away into the earth, snaked into unseen crevasses, and left behind four simple words to reflect the silvery moonlight brightly.

  “Credo in Dei -- I believe in God”

  As he stared, the others inched forward. Father Fernando knelt at Donovan’s side. The villagers crowed behind them, so close he felt their breath and heard their whispered prayers. A moment longer and his head pulsed to the rhythm of their hearts, all beating as one, a thundering drumbeat that threatened to drive coherent thought from his mind.

  Father Prescott leaned closer. He reached out his hand slowly, very slowly, and traced the letters about an inch above the ground. He reached closer, stopped, and pulled his hand back slowly.

  Then, very deliberately, he slipped back and stood. The others parted for him without a murmur. Shaking his head back and forth to clear it, he turned and walked away. He didn’t look back, and he didn’t listen to their words or their prayers. As he walked through the darkness the reflected words strobed in his mind like a heavenly neon banner.

  * * *

  Father Thomas leaned in over his desk, his brow furrowed with concentration. He hung on every word of the story, and it was obvious to Donovan that the younger priest was looking for a glimmer of his own answer in that far away courtyard.

  “I didn’t investigate further that night,” Father Prescott continued. “I went back to the cottage where I was staying, and I prayed. I didn’t pray that it would be a miracle. I prayed that my actions and my motives were pure. I p
rayed that I wasn’t just an extension of the Pharisees and their nay saying of every miraculous event they confronted. I prayed that whatever I found would prove beneficial both to the Church, and to the people of that village and their young priest.

  “Above all, I prayed for the strength to continue. I was scared, Quentin, more frightened than I’ve ever been in my adult life. The implications of what I faced weighed heavily on my mind, and I was half-poised to flee back to Rome, tell them it was a fluke and find myself a small parish somewhere with a forest and a stream and a small flock of nice, unimaginative people to tend.”

  Father Thomas sat back slightly and cocked his head to one side.

  “Did you find that strength?” he asked softly. “I already know you didn’t find your parish.”

  Donovan smiled.

  “I completed my investigation. I stayed the night, and another. I repeated what I’d done that first night -- attended the ceremony, watched the words appear. It was a very moving experience.”

  “The local priest, Father Fernando?” Quentin asked. “How did he react to your presence? Was he hopeful that you’d validate his miracle, or did he just want you to make it go away so he could hold the Mass on Sundays and retire in peace?”

  “It’s never as simple as we’d like it to be, is it Quentin? You remind me of Father Fernando. He sought answers, but not out of selfishness, or a thought of personal gain -- he merely wanted to believe, or to understand. For him there was no in between – no safe gray area.”

  The two men sat across from one another in silence for a few moments. Father Prescott’s expression was far away, lost in the images he’d conjured from his past. Father Thomas was thoughtful, trying to piece it all together and apply it to his own situation.

  Turning to Father Prescott, Quentin finally broke the silence.

  “You don’t believe that I’m making it up, do you?”

  Father Prescott didn’t answer at first. When he did, his words were very slow and soft, as if he were examining a vast store of them and choosing each carefully.

  “Unlike Bishop Michaels, I find that I must come at these situations with an open mind. If I allow any prior prejudice to color my thinking, I have failed before I begin. I haven’t known you for a very long time, Quentin, but the few moments we’ve been allowed to share have been – intense.

  “No, I don’t believe you made it up. I don’t believe you would purposely deceive your congregation, the Bishop or the Church.

  “I also do not yet believe in the miracle.”

  Father Thomas nodded. “I’m not sure I believe it’s a miracle myself,“ he replied. “It has seemed more like a curse than a blessing so far. That’s why I asked for help.”

  Father Prescott started to answer, but stopped at a solid knock on the door. Both priests turned, and the door swung open to reveal the impressive bulk of Gladys Multinerry. She hesitated for only a moment, and then stepped into the office with purpose.

  She spotted Father Prescott, and her eyes narrowed. She fixed him with an imperious glare, seemed about to say something, then shook her head dismissively. It was hard to tell whether she was dismissing her own thought before she could vocalize it, or dismissing Father Prescott himself.

  Gladys turned to Father Thomas.

  “I just stopped by to see if you had anything around the office that needed doing, Father,” she said.

  Father Thomas grinned at her, and her expression softened.

  “Gladys,” he said, “I’d like you to meet Father Prescott. He’s flown all the way here from Rome to offer me his help in figuring out just what happened here last Easter.”

  Gladys turned back to Father Prescott and scanned him carefully. She took him in from hair to toe like an inspecting officer in front of troops. Finally she came to some conclusion, though it didn’t show in her eyes.

  “Pleased to meet you, Father,” she said noncommittally.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you,” Father Prescott replied, undaunted by her scrutiny. He smiled. “Father Thomas says you nursed him back to health pretty much single-handedly after last Easter Mass. I heard it was quite an experience – Gladys, is it?”

  “Mrs. Multinerry,” Gladys replied coolly. “It was more than an experience, Father. It was a vision, nothing less, a vision I’ll never be shy of. Not, of course, that I’d choose to be.”

  Father Prescott nodded and gritted his teeth. He only just avoided smiling, and the effort turned his expression to a sort of half-grimace that made Gladys cock her head and stare.

  “It’s okay, Gladys,” Father Thomas said. He made no effort to hide his amusement. “Father Prescott isn’t here to call me the devil, or a liar. He’s here to find the truth, whatever that truth might be. If there’s a miracle here, he won’t be running back to tell Rome that there isn’t. Isn’t that right, Father Prescott?”

  Donovan nodded and smiled.

  Gladys didn’t look convinced, but she turned back toward the door. She started out into the hallway, stopped, and then stepped back into the room as if some decision had been reached.

  Turning to Donovan, she said, “Father Thomas is a good man, Father Prescott. No matter what any others say – and I think we all know who I’m talking about -- I know what I saw. I’ve been coming here longer than any living soul. There’s never been anything like it.”

  She shook her head, and then added, “You’ll do good to remember he’s an honest man.”

  Without another word or waiting for a reply, Gladys turned and was gone. She moved quickly and gracefully for her size and age, and she left a hint of some strong, cloying perfume trapped in the air behind her to mark her passing.

  Both men stared after her, open-mouthed. When Gladys’ steps had retreated and disappeared into the cathedral, they turned to one another and burst out laughing. Any ice that had remained between the two of them shattered in that instant and that burst of sound.

  “Well,” Father Prescott said at last, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes, “you certainly know where you stand with that woman. I’m afraid she isn’t the first of your parishioners I’ve met with less than good thoughts to send my way. Your maintenance man, for one. And then there was the man who left your office just as I arrived. He nearly ran away from me.”

  “The Church has been a large part of Gladys’ life since her husband’s death,” Quentin replied. “Her son, Norman, lives with her, but they aren’t as close as they once were. That was Norman you met in the hall – he came here looking for Gladys.

  “She needs something to fill her days and the Church has done that for her. I believe she thinks of me as a second son.

  “Some of the others feel nearly the same. I’m afraid you aren’t going to be popular around here unless I’m exonerated, though I will certainly do anything in my power to smooth your way.”

  Father Prescott smiled ruefully and rose. He considered asking Father Thomas if he’d given anything to Norman. For some reason he still held the image of the man jamming his meaty hands into his jacket pockets and looking down, like a child caught in a cookie jar. He let it go. Instead, he held out his hand.

  Father Thomas took the hand and clasped it warmly.

  “I’m used to that attitude,” Father Prescott said. “People don’t take it lightly when you poke around in their closets, particularly if they use them to store miracles. I’ll take it easy around them, and in the meantime we’ll see if we can’t hunt up a miracle – or at least some answers.”

  “I pray that it will be so,” Father Thomas said. “And soon? I will be seeing you soon, Donovan?”

  “Of course,” Father Prescott replied. “It wouldn’t be very easy to investigate you if I didn’t spend the time nearby, would it? Whatever we find, I believe I’ll consider our time together well spent.”

  Father Prescott turned and headed for the door. Father Thomas watched him until he was nearly out of sight, and then called out.

  “Donovan?”

  Father Prescott turned b
ack.

  “The words, at the foot of the statue of St. Peter, Martyr . . . were they real? What did you find?”

  Father Prescott smiled broadly, and the expression lit up his face.

  “I’ll tell you the next time we speak,” he said. “It will give you a reason to be glad to see me coming.”

  Father Thomas watched the door for a long moment after Father Prescott’s departure. Then, unable to control it, he broke into a grin.

  ~ Thirteen ~

  Gladys and Norman Multinerry lived in a comfortable three-bedroom home on the outskirts of Lavender, California. Gladys and her husband, “Big Bob” Multinerry, had built it themselves nearly fifty years earlier. Bob had been a contractor. He built a lot of houses for a lot of people, but he’d put every bit of himself into this one, modest structure.

  It stood at the rear left corner of a dead-end cul-de-sac. The back yard butted up against a small patch of forest. Gladys had hung bird feeders in the back yard, and they always swarmed with feathered visitors. Norman didn’t care about the birds, the birdseed, the house, or anything beyond the confines of his thoughts of the moment.

  Gladys knew this about her son. He was a self-contained, angry little world whirling through the bigger, more dangerous universe without proper care. She did what she could to steer him, but since Bob’s death, he’d become increasingly belligerent and difficult to manage.

  The old Buick pulled into the drive, and Norman, who’d driven from San Marcos in silence, killed the engine. He was out of the car and headed for the front door before Gladys even got her door open. She grunted with the exertion of turning to lever herself out of the seat. It had been a long time since Norman last remembered to open her door for her, or to help her to her feet. Gladys secretly believed her son hoped she’d fall back and hit her head on the car so he could inherit the house, her money, and get on with his life.

  Gladys stood slowly, retrieved her purse and closed the car behind her. She glanced at the door to the garage with a frown. When Bob had been alive, the car had always been kept in the garage. They had an automatic opener, but it had been so long since it was last used that the batteries had died.