Chapter 597: Mallory XI—Help
Five minutes ago, Mallory would have been more than overjoyed to see Cecile walk through the church doors. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen the girl, and it disturbed him to think that even this most pious, most pure of girls could fall victim to the disintegrating climate that made up this world. In fact, he would have thought it impossible for this girl to be corrupted and even wondered if she did not yet understand her real calling as a nun; it would put her intense passion for God and Christ to the use it deserved. Really, he could not imagine her actually going through with a marriage and a family; it seemed to him that a matter of time would finally bring her a sign, an epiphany and then a calling.
Truly, as absurd as it sounded, he sometimes imagined that she were a girl destined for much more important things spiritually, yes, even world changing things! Ah, but it’s easy to be swayed by a penitent heart and a pretty face. A capable enough actress can bring forth the same sort of feelings in a darkened theater.
Either way, considering this hellish confused underworld he’d been confronted with ever since Nicodemus’s suicide, he thought of Cecile as sort of an oasis in this religious wasteland that surrounded him. The fact that she’d been appearing in church less and less these days seemed attributable to the fact that her duties as a child care provider probably were beginning to catch up with her and interfere with her. Of course, he could not think of many employers, especially mothers who needed help with their own children, who were sympathetic to the religious needs of their workers.
Unfortunately, the family who she worked for did not attend his church, nor did he think they were Catholic. So he could not approach them kindly and appeal to their decency in allowing the girl some freedom on Sundays. He’d been successful before with other families and similar situations.
The church remained quiet today. A few of the faithful has come in, a few early confessions, a few late confessions, some just seeking a place to pray in comfort. At the time Cecile arrived, it was empty. Mallory stood up straight, almost gasped at the sight of her, and he was certain that she could not have mistaken the expression on his face. The girl frowned and ran her hands down the front of her coat. “Is something wrong?”
Mallory recovered, shook his head. “No, not at all.” To reinforce this, he went to her, and he patted her forearm. “Nothing is wrong. Actually, it’s great to see you. It’s…”
“It’s been awhile,” Cecile finished for him and her smile, her laugh, it was the laugh of the prodigal penitent, a girl embarrassed with herself. “I’m very sorry about that, it’s just that…”
“Work has been hard these days?” He offered, finishing for her.
Cecile did not dispute this. She remained quite, nodded.
“Well, as I said before it is wonderful to see you again.”
Cecile nodded again. Ah, what is different about her? Something more than work had been keeping her from church, he assumed. Look at her eyes, the tightness of her mouth, her cheeks. She’s so pale, porcelain, beautiful as she’d always been, but something about her seemed harsh. It took away from her ethereal beauty and off-put him in a familiar way. “Yes, work, it’s been tough. But, but, I’d be unfair to blame the Sakic’s. I’m grateful to them; there’s been more, however.”
Of course there has. Mallory thought, and he could not help noticing the change around the corners of her mouth, and in her voice. Hard, hard, hard, he kept thinking. Normally, she’d have glowed with the warmth of her good will and her naïve supposition that love could indeed overcome everything. He didn’t see that here, and the end result reminded him somewhat of Katrina’s face. Beautiful and cold, flinty. “We can talk about it, if you like?”
Cecile brightened a little here, she nodded eagerly, bringing her hands up and clasping them against her breast. “Please!”
“Would you like to make confession?”
Instantly, Cecile shut down, almost as if someone had flipped the switch on her face. She looked down, paled more, slowly she shook her head. “No, I don’t…well not yet. In a little bit?”
“Of course, I wouldn’t want you to be uncomfortable,” Mallory smiled to her, showed her how safe she was. “We can go into a quieter place and we can talk. You needn’t worry about anything else.”
“Yes, I’d like that.”
Cecile followed him to his office. She stayed behind him, walking with light steps as any young girl would a teacher, or a father. Ah, she still trusted him implicitly, a man of God. Knowing that someone in this world still believed in their faith still bathed in God’s light shot through his breast and warmed his veins. And then, the warmth turned to anger. Her sudden reluctance to confess struck alarm bells in his mind. What could her worthless fiancé have done to her, no doubt he’d pushed her beyond her will and endurance, badgered her into doing something that she regretted so much that she saw fit to avoid church and confession.
As he sat at his desk, he looked down, not meeting Cecile’s gaze as she sat down. Blood filled his cheeks, and he did not want her to suppose the thoughts going through his head, it would only make her more nervous and frightened. “What has been bothering you, my child?” Now, he looked at her.
She swallowed. “Well, Father, it’s somewhat awkward.”
“Yes?”
Her brow furrowed, and her thick dark eyebrows seemed contorted between up and down. It brought attention to the ragged scar underneath her eye, a blight upon her otherwise flawless face. “Well, Father, I have been under much… stress lately.” She held out one of her hands, looking away, searching for words. “It’s been…well…” She looked at him helplessly.
“Stressful?”
Cecile smiled, and laughed a quick breathless laugh. Mallory felt somewhat pleased with himself. “Yes! Stressful!”
“So…you’ve been under stressful stress?”
Cecile’s smile broadened. “As opposed to calming stress.”
Mallory crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Ah, calming stress, how I love it!”
Cecile giggled.
“Ah, well at least I see a smile?”
Cecile brought her fingertips over her lips, almost as one does who is ashamed of the condition of their teeth. But this girl had wonderful teeth. When she pulled her fingers off, her smile was gone, almost as if she’d used her hand to wipe it clean. “It’s funny.”
“Oh?”
Cecile nodded. She leaned forward, her eyes wide and green. “It’s funny how you can make fun of my words, sometimes I’m at a loss for a phrase and everything comes out wrong. When you catch this and make a joke of it, it makes me laugh, and it makes me feel better. It’s wonderful.”
The compliment, it rushed completely through Mallory from ear to ear and he almost felt overcome with dizziness, although he didn’t show it. At least he hoped he didn’t. “Well, I’m glad I can be comforting to you.”
“Comfort! Yes!” Cecile sat up straight. “Exactly! You are a comfort. It doesn’t bother me at all when you tease, but…” Now she narrowed her eyes, looked distant as if her gaze went through him to look at something else. “When HE does it. Oh,” she covered her face. “When he does it, it drives me INSANE! I can’t stand how he trips me up, and he twists my words, and I should just laugh.” She uncovered her face and waggled her forefinger at him as a mother would to a child. “I should just laugh. It I would only laugh, it would be nothing at all, and it would go away! But I get so angry, and I yell, and I get worked up. It drives me NUTS!”
Well, Mallory imagined that she was talking about her fiancé and he could not help but smile kindly to her. Obviously, past the blush of forbidden love, past the joy of youth and freedom, Cecile was beginning to see her intended’s no doubt numerous flaws and faults. “Men love to tease the girls they wish to impress.”
“I know.”
“And young women are contrary creatures.”
Cecile raised her eyebrows.
“I’ve noticed that young women tend to react aggressively to the attentions of men who are teasing them, especially, if deep down, they’re enjoying it?”
Her lips parted, she seemed a little…paler.
“It seems to me, perhaps, knowing you should laugh has made you a little stubborn. You’re asking him to tease you a little more, in your own way. It’s quite a charming trait amongst the young.”
With her furrowed brow, and frown, she seemed anything but charmed. “But, I don’t want him to.”
“But you love him?”
“No! I can’t! I don’t! Not in the slightest, Father, I want him to stop!”
Oh… at this point he realized that she could not be talking about her fiancé. Cold worry fell over his heart, and his palms dampened. “Oh, I see.” A common story amongst nannies, he knew, was for the father of the family to turn his eyes to the pretty caregiver. It could be a scenario such as this, it could be someone else. The last thing he wanted, however, was to allow her to fall prey to someone wayward, lust-struck man who would only ruin her. “Tell me more about him. I’m sure I can help.”
His knees ached. The hard wood seat cut into his tailbone and sent aches up his spine. Age chasing him down, stripping his physical vitality, and years before his time, so the doctor said, but Mallory didn’t mind. He was militant about his diet these days, diligent with physical exercise and taking vitamins, and after this Crestmoor disaster, and the Dye-4 scare, he really only drank filtered water. Still, his body continued to fail him.
The doctor would really feel much better if he could test him, draw some blood, do a scan. It could be… it could be… But, Mallory had said, I thought only children were afflicted? It could be… it could be… Symptoms similar to Lyme disease, earlier arthritis, joints swelling, other ailments, all of them piling and piling, symptoms tangling and confusing until it resembled cancer, or MS or chronic depression.
No, it’s not that bad for me. Mallory rubbed his aching knees. Years of piously tending to an uncomfortable flock on uncomfortable chairs, things like this were marks of suffering for God. He’d not had a sip of milk in years, not since the first whispers of the scare. It wouldn’t due to take tests. They were a waste of time.
Now here, is a man who truly needs help.
Mallory stood up when Mr. O’Shea burst through the church doorway. A burly man, reddish beard, wide eyes, florid face, he looked like a barbarian come to life. His arms flailed as he ran, and it felt as if the very floorboards shook.
Mallory clasped his hands together, his lips tight. The boy must have died today.
“My boy!” O’Shea cried.
Another one to add to the forty plus who’d died in this city this month.
“My boy!”
Stay calm.
Truthfully, when the first victims began to succumb, Mallory had found it easy
to be calm. After all, was not trials such as this predicted in the bible?
Pestilence, pestilence, afflicting the children, taking them away like in the days
of
That is,
until, the reports of that woman from
He’d seen her face on the tabloids, and recognized her voice on the news. It pained him to think that Cecile could have…mutated into this creature! It even stung his heart to imagine that perhaps, if only he’d pressed a little harder, he could have saved her. Then again, a grown woman, she had to understand the spiritual consequences of her arrogance. He couldn’t carry her on his conscience.
“My BOY!”
“Mr. O’Shea…” Mallory began, holding his hands out in the Shepard’s way he’d perfected in front of the mirror. Now is the time to comfort this bereaved…
“Father Mallory!” Mr. O’Shea stopped in front of him, sweating, red-faced, breathing, spittle even escaping the corner of his mouth.
“Your son’s suffering, it’s over now…”
“YES!”
Mallory frowned, wondering why a smile would accompany such a revelation. “And he can rest in peace now, just as God wanted…”
“God wanted him to be healthy!” O’Shea cried, throwing both of his arms into the air, dark sweat stains circling the pits.
Oh dear, perhaps this long-suffering man had lost his wits, as had happened before with parents. “Of course a healthy child makes God happy,” Mallory began carefully, patting O’Shea’s shoulder. “But sometimes, it makes Him even happier to be joined in heaven by them. It isn’t something we should…”
“HEALTHY!” O’Shea cried. And then he fell to his knees in front of Mallory, reaching forward and grabbing onto his pant legs. “FATHER! BLESS ME! FATHER! A MIRACLE! BLESS ME FOR A MIRACLE!”
Oh… oh… Not at all offended by the poor man’s desperate plea, Mallory slowly went down to his aching knees, felt the cold cement cut into the bone. He kept his voice as gentle as possible. “Mr. O’Shea, I am only a voice for God, a spokesman of His written word, not an angel, or His hand. I’m deeply sorry about your son. But I cannot summon a miracle to…”
“But it’s happened!” O’Shea hissed, droplets of spit flying from his lips. His pale eyes seemed white, dancing. “It’s happened! I prayed all night, I prayed for weeks, with you I prayed! And I didn’t think I did not even have faith that God was listening. I only held onto a slim chance, Father, a SLIM chance!”
Mallory frowned. “Mr. O’Shea, forgive me, but I’m confused.”
“God heard my cries! He…He found me worthy. He sent his angel to me, to my boy! She touched my boy because God listened!”
Momentarily, Mallory’s heart jumped, stuck in his throat. Now this, he could never have imagined, never dared to hope. Of course, ninety nine percent of these incidents were shams by the arrogant or the deluded. But…well…look at his face! This is a man who’d seen… “Did the Virgin…Did you and your son…I mean did she comfort you?”
“She did more, father, moooore!” And O’Shea slurred the last word as if he were a vicious beast growling over its kill. The utter change it caused in the man’s face startled Mallory and sent a chill through his veins.
“What happned?”
“Not the Virgin, Father Mallory. He sent the Virgin’s sister, she must be! Her right hand, her hand maiden! He sent Mary’s Saint!”
Mallory narrowed his eyes.
“My BOY!” O’Shea cried. He reached out and grabbed Mallory’s face, squeezing his cheeks in his meaty, sweaty, heated palms. “Father, that woman came to us today. This morning, Sister…no, no, SAINT Cecilia!”
Mallory almost choked. The shock of the name, the image it created spun his senses and he fell back, struggled out of O’Shea’s grip. “WHAT?”
O’Shea ran his tongue over his lips. “Father, she is beautiful! Her eyes are so green, so pure and kind. And she’s so small, fragile, bony, like a bird I could break in my fingers. So beautiful! She is Mary’s servant. She told us so. At first…I, I, tried to send her off, I told her everything you’d told us to say, I called her a vulture and a charlatan. But she did not get pissed off or anything. She smiled, and her mouth, her voice, Father, it touched my soul, it soothed all of my agony. Do you understand what that is?”
Mallory could not say anything.
“It’s like…” O’Shea thumped his chest with his fist. “It’s like I’ve been carrying the damn Mojave in my chest, this drought. And she cooled it, she quenched it. Father, God must be behind her, He has to be. Nothing evil could have brought me so much reprieve! And then she went to my boy, she kneeled next do him…”
“STOP!” Mallory cried, tears burned his eyes and he covered his face. “Stop!”
But O’Shea continued, almost as if he hadn’t heard. “My boy would have died this morning. The gray took him, his lips, were blue, just like the others. His poor knees were so swollen, like…like grapefruits on sticks, he couldn’t talk, just make squeaking noises like a kitten. Father my boy would have died today!”
“No more…” Mallory murmured.
“She touched him, her hands on his cheeks. And Father, her skin is so white, like porcelain or cream. And she touched him and she kissed his mouth and he…the color just faded from him, and he turned pink. Father, he sat up in his bed, and then jumped out of his bed, Father….Father! He’s… the doctor’s can’t understand it! They CAN’T! But they’re fools Father, they can’t understand because they don’t see! Not like us. They can’t see like us, Father. Can’t they?”
Mallory slipped his hands from his eyes, squinting. “And what do we see?”
“The Hand of Mary!” O’Shea breathed, and he arced his hand in the air. “The Virgin has heard your sermons and our prayers, and She has…She has convinced God to allow Her servant down. She’s a miracle, Father! Isn’t this great? A MIRACLE!”
Mallory wept, and O’Shea held him close, weeping as well. Although, Mallory was certain that O’Shea did not understand that Patrick’s tears were bitter.
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