have long time holden my peace; I have been still,

and refrained myself: now will I cry like a travailing woman;

I will destroy and devour at once.

–Isaiah 4214 November 8, 1999 Jessica White adjusts a pale-green glass vase an inch to the right, making lavender tulips sway. Beside her, Colin White relaxes against throw pillows in increasing degrees of purple. I have fallen into a catalog, Kenzie thinks, and I can’t get out.

“Ms. van der Hoven,” Jessica says,

“can I get you more seltzer?”

“No, thanks. And it’s Kenzie.” She smiles at the couple. “I hear that you’re going to have a baby.” Is it her imagination, or does Colin lean the slightest bit away from his wife?

Jessica’s hand steals over her abdomen.

“In May.”

“We’re hoping his big sister is here for the event,” Colin adds.

She knows exactly what he’s trying to get across. “Yes. Well. Maybe you can tell me, Mr. White, why you’ve suddenly developed an interest in your daughter’s custody.”

“I’ve always wanted custody of Faith,” he says quietly. “I was just trying to get myself back on my feet first. I didn’t think that ripping Faith away from her home was smart, right after the shake-up of the divorce.”

“So you had her best interests in mind?”

Colin offers a remarkable smile, and thoughts scatter through her head–this was a man who could sell sand in the desert, who could charm the shoes off a horse. “Exactly!” He leans forward,

relinquishing his wife’s hand to clasp both of his together. “Look. This is a messy situation, and I’m not going to look like a saint. I didn’t expect Mariah to come home that day with Faith, and I know that’s not an excuse, but clearly you can see it wasn’t just some … some passing fling. I love Jessica; I married her. Whatever problems I was having in my relationship with Mariah, they had nothing to do with Faith. I’m her father, I’ll always be her father, and I want to give her the kind of home she deserves.”

Kenzie taps her pencil. “What’s wrong with the kind of home she’s in now?”

He seems startled for a moment. “Well,

you’ve been there! Is it normal for a little girl to have an entire press corps follow her when she opens the door? Is it normal for her to believe, for Christ’s sake, that she’s having conversations with God?”

“It’s my understanding that your ex-wife made an attempt to remove Faith from media scrutiny.”

“Is that what she told you?” Colin’s jaw sets. “She made an attempt to buck the legal system. The day after I told her I was going to sue for custody, she disappeared.”

Kenzie sits up at this. “She knew she was going to be subpoenaed?”

“I said, “You’ll hear from my lawyer.” And –bam–she went into hiding.”

Kenzie makes a note on her pad. As a woman nearly weaned on the value of the law, the very thought of stepping outside the system immediately raises her suspicions. “Mariah did come back, though,” she says.

“Because her attorney put the fear of God into her. Can’t you see now why I want Faith out of her reach? If things start to look bad for Mariah during the hearing, she’s going to pack up and run away with Faith again. Mariah doesn’t stick around for a fight; it’s not in her nature. In fact, she’s been in therapy for that for years.”

“Are you an advocate of psychotherapy?”

“Sure,” he says. “When it’s warranted.”

“And yet your ex-wife says it wasn’t an option you considered after her suicide attempt.”

Colin’s mouth tightens. “Forgive me, Ms.

van der Hoven, but you don’t seem very objective.”

Kenzie meets his gaze. “It’s my job to turn over stones.”

Jessica interrupts by standing suddenly and clearing her throat. “Wouldn’t now be a lovely time for cake?”

They both watch Jessica go into the kitchen.

As soon as she is out of earshot, Colin begins to speak, clearly agitated. “Don’t you think it upset me to send Mariah to Greenhaven? God,

she was my wife. I loved her. But she was … she was … Well, almost overnight she became someone I didn’t recognize. I didn’t know how to talk to her or take care of her. So I did what I thought I had to do,

to help her. And now it’s like history’s repeating itself. My little girl isn’t acting like my little girl anymore. And I can’t stand to see this happening again.”

Kenzie learned a long time ago that sometimes the wisest course of action is to say nothing at all. She sits back and waits for Colin White to continue.

“Right after Faith was born, I used to walk around the house at night with her when she fussed.

She was this tiny little thing, with all the right pieces,

and sometimes she’d just stop crying and look at me like she already knew me.” Colin looks down into his lap. “I love her. Whatever happens, whatever the court does, you can’t take that away.”

Kenzie has stopped taking notes. “Have you never in your life made a mistake, Ms. van der Hoven?” he asks softly.

She glances away and notices a large box hidden behind the dining room table. From its label,

she sees it is a plastic easel. Clearly not a toy for the baby on its way–and yet, clearly new. Colin follows her gaze and reddens. “I’m an optimistic man,” he says, and smiles shyly.

Kenzie realizes that–out of sympathy for Mariah White–she has been expecting a monster. But this man has his reasons for setting a battle in motion. And they are not vengeful, or vindictive–he’s simply seen something that scares him, and he wants to fix it.

Then again, Colin White may be a consummate actor.

November 9, 1999 Father Rampini stands in a nicely appointed office at the Diocesan Chancery with his hands clasped behind his back, staring at a bookshelf and idly wondering why His Excellency the Bishop of Manchester would have sixteen copies of the biography of Saint Theresa, the Little Flower.

As the door opens, he whirls around,

surreptitiously wiping the sweat from his palms before nodding at Bishop Andrews. “Father,” the bishop grunts, settling down in a burgundy leather wing chair.

“Your Excellency.”

“Please.” Andrews gestures, and Rampini edges into a smaller chair and fixes his eyes on the swaying chain of the pectoral cross tucked into the bishop’s pocket.

Rampini has examined alleged visions before to make sure there was nothing in them contrary to faith.

In every case to date, even the promising ones,

he’s recommended a wait-and-see policy.

He has been careful not to make a hasty judgment, lest he come off looking foolish.

And that, in a nutshell, is why his hands keep shaking. He’s going out on a limb here. Because he really believes that Faith White may just be envisioning God.

Bishop Andrews takes off his glasses and polishes them before slipping them back on. “According to the rector at St. John’s, you’re the most esteemed theologian in the Northeast.”

“If you say so, Your Excellency.”

“On behalf of the diocese, I’d like to thank you for coming.”

“Perfectly all right,” Rampini says.

The bishop nods graciously. “I only have a couple of questions, Father.”

“With all due respect, Your Excellency,

I’ve already submitted my report.”

“Yes, in fact … two of them. The original recommendation and–what did you call it?–ah, the revised update. You know, I can’t quite figure out why a theologian–the most esteemed theologian in the Northeast, that is–would file two completely contradictory reports within a few hours’ time, regarding the substantive miracles of Faith White.” At Rampini’s affronted silence, Andrews gets impatient.

He reaches into his pocket and fingers his rosary –it makes a handy set of worry beads.

“I’m certain a man of your credentials has been called in for consultation on a wide number of religious sightings.”

“Often.”

“Yet you’ve never before given your personal endorsement.”

Father Rampini tightens his mouth. “That’s true. And yes, the revised report indicates that this time I am.”

The bishop decides to play dumb. He scratches his head. “I’m a little confused, Father.

Now, I don’t presume to be half the theologian you are, naturally, but it seems to me that a Jewish child seeing a female God goes against traditional Catholic dogma.”

Father Rampini crosses his arms. “Are you asking me to justify my findings?”

“No, no. But for my own … edification …

I’d love to know your thought process.”

Rampini clears his throat. “There are a variety of supporting criteria. The fact that Faith White isn’t Catholic is unorthodox, Your Excellency, but not inauthentic. One would be more leery of the elderly ladies who pray for sixteen hours a day and then confess Jesus appeared to them at the kitchen table. Faith wasn’t asking for this vision, but it came. She’s also very closemouthed about her conversations with God, and she tries to hide episodes of stigmata.”

“Stigmata,” the bishop says. “Did you see them?”

“I did. I’m not personally familiar with Holy Marks, of course, but the general consensus of the medical community is that they aren’t self-inflicted.”

“She could be a hysteric.”

“Entirely possible,” Rampini agrees.

“Except that in addition to the wounds,

there’s proof apart from the person of the seer. In this case, healing.”

“You’re the expert, of course, but I have to admit–it would bother me a bit to know she’s running around saying God’s a woman.”

“Actually, she’s not. The MotherGod Society is spreading the propaganda. Faith isn’t saying much of anything at all. In addition to the fact that–as I said in my second report –she isn’t seeing God as a woman. She’s seeing Our Lord Jesus Christ, in His traditional form and clothing, yet interpreting Him as a female figure.”

Bishop Andrews raises a brow. “That’s a stretch, son.”

“Surely you’re not telling me, Your Excellency, how to do my job.” Father Rampini speaks softly. “You meet her. And then come talk to me.”

They stare at each other silently. “You feel this strongly,” the bishop finally says.

“I do.”

“You think I should take this to the U.s.

Bishops’ Conference.”

“I wouldn’t presume to tell you what to do.”

Bishop Andrews taps his forefingers together. “You know, this isn’t The X-Files, Father. No matter what the public wants, some fantastic display isn’t the way to get the flock back to the Church. Even if I were to go along with your recommendation, I’d be wary of the haste with which you made it. The last thing I want is to be exposed as some loony on a supernatural scavenger hunt–can you imagine what that would do to the diocese? To Catholicism in general? There’s a reason these evaluations take years, Father.

It’s so that in the event Faith White is a charlatan, you and I will be dead and buried and blissfully unaware of the backlash.” Bishop Andrews tilts his head. “Has this child ever even been in a Catholic church?”

“Not that I know of, Excellency.”

“Has she been raised according to the Jewish faith?”

“No. Since her mother isn’t a practicing Jew, she felt taking the child to temple would be hypocritical. I confirmed with a rabbi, however,

that if the mother is Jewish, so is the child.

Regardless.”

“And that,” the bishop says, “is the stumbling block. We have no jurisdiction over a child who isn’t Catholic.”

A muscle tics in Rampini’s jaw. “Then why did you ask me to come?”

He watches the bishop walk to his desk, and suddenly realizes that Andrews is going to hedge his bets. He won’t use Rampini’s endorsement of Faith White–unless the tide turns and he needs it. He’ll keep both contradictory reports, so that he’s ready for either contingency; and Father Rampini won’t be able to say a thing about it without making himself look indecisive. Heat floods the priest’s face, moving up from his white collar. “You will disregard the first report,”

Rampini orders. “I’m officially submitting the second one, and only the second one, for your consideration.”

Without taking his eyes off the younger man’s face, Bishop Andrews slides the paper he’s holding into a desk drawer. “Which one was that?” he says.

November 10, 1999 When Ian enters Malcolm Metz’s office, the attorney doesn’t get up from his seat. “Well,” he says instead, leaning back in his chair. “This certainly is a pleasure.

I’m a big fan.”

Ian stares at him squarely. “My fee’s ninety thousand. It’s what advertisers pay for a commercial during my shows. I’m envisioning your trial in much the same way–an interruption bracketing the things I’m planning to say anyway.”

To his credit, Metz doesn’t even blink.

“I don’t foresee that being a problem,” he says. In truth, he has no idea whether or not his client can come up with the money, but he’s not about to squash negotiations before they even really begin.

“As long as you remember that this isn’t a television show. A little girl’s life is at stake.”

“Save your bullshit for the court,” Ian says. “I know what you want.”

“Which is?”

“Proof that Faith White is a charlatan.

And hints that her mother is the puppeteer.”

Metz smiles. “And you, of course,

have all this information.”

“Would you have asked for me if I didn’t?”

Metz considers this for a moment. “I don’t know. Just on your Q-rating alone, you could probably convince a judge that the sun isn’t going to rise tomorrow.”

At that, Ian laughs. “Maybe you are a fan after all.”

“Why don’t you tell me what you’ve got?”

“Some decent hidden-camera footage of Mariah White coaching the kid before she bows and scrapes for the crowd. A testimonial from a woman who went on national TV saying that her baby had been cured of AIDS by Faith,

admitting that Mariah White paid her three thousand dollars to make up the story. Couple of experts who’ve signed off on a written scientific explanation for Millie Epstein’s corpse coming back to life–has to do with electrical currents and bodily tissue, or some such like that.”

“What about the hands?”

“The alleged stigmata? It’s an optical illusion.”

“An optical illusion?”

“Come on now, certainly you’ve seen fire-eaters at the circus, or magicians passing objects through their fists.”

“How could they fool a bunch of doctors?”

“Well, I’m still working on that. My theory is that they didn’t. That when it came to medical personnel taking a look-see, Faith truly poked herself with something or other.”

Metz looks skeptical. “Why? What’s the point?”

Ian leans back in the chair. “I’m surprised you’d even have to ask, Mr. Metz.

For the attention, of course.”

Metz narrows his eyes. “If you don’t mind my asking, how come none of this has made it to your show as of late?”

“Because there’s something even bigger I’ll be using to blow this case open, and before you even ask, it’s not negotiable.” Ian steeples his fingers. “Way I see it, your courtroom can do just as good a job as any of my teaser broadcasts, leading up to the grand finale. For the fee I mentioned, you are welcome to the information and signed testimonies I just described, as well as my considerable reputation in the field and my stage presence. But that’s all you’re damn well gonna get.”

Slowly, Metz nods. “I see.”

“The other thing you have to understand is that I’m a busy man. I’ll be happy to go over testimony regarding any of that information I just gave you … but we’re gonna do it here, and we’re gonna do it now.”

“Absolutely not. I’m not ready. I have to–“

“You have to do half as much as you would with any other witness. I already know how to act. All you’ve gotta do is set down the facts you want in the order you want them.”

For a moment there is silence, two men who are larger than life considerably cramped in such close quarters. “Another rehearsal the day before your testimony,” Metz bargains.

Ian grins. “Sir,” he says, “you have yourself a deal.”

Mariah opens the door a crack to find Kenzie van der Hoven on the threshold. “Can Faith come out and play?”

Against her better judgment, Mariah laughs.

“It’s a little cold out. Maybe you two could stay in.” This prearranged visit with the GAL comes as a relief. Mariah has been snapping at Faith all day for getting underfoot, something completely understandable while they are cooped up in the house.

Faith races into the room on rollerblades.

Mariah watches the wheels leave black tracks on the tile and bites her tongue to keep from yelling at her daughter for the twentieth time that day, especially in front of the guardian ad litem. Catching Faith’s eye instead,

Mariah raises a brow and then glances down at the skates, clearly annoyed.

“Oops,” Faith says, plopping onto her bottom and ripping open the Velcro fastenings of the skates. “Kenzie, did you come to see me?”

“Yup. Is that okay?”

“It’s awesome.”

Mariah smiles. “I’ll be making dinner if you need me.”

Kenzie watches her walk into the kitchen, and then feels five tiny fingers reach around her hand.

“Come see my room,” Faith says. “It’s really cool.”

“Oh?” Kenzie allows herself to be led upstairs. “What color is it?”

“Yellow.” Faith pushes open a door to reveal sunny walls and a white canopy bed.

She leaps onto it and starts jumping, her hair flying in an arc behind her. Then she bounces onto her bottom and off the bed, playing hostess.

“These are my Legos. And my art set that Santa brought last year, and this picture was taken of me when I was only two hours old.”

Kenzie dutifully peers at a photo of a tiny, tomato-faced infant. “Do you spend a lot of time in your room?”

“It depends. Mom won’t let me have a TV up here, so I can’t watch videos or anything. Sometimes I feel like drawing at the kitchen table, so I take my art set down there.

And sometimes I just color on the floor.” She raises her arms over her head. “I used to take ballet.”

Kenzie watches her twirl in a slow circle, her arms lifted in a pirouette. “Not anymore? How come?”

“Things happened.” Faith picks at a loop of the throw rug and shrugs. “Mom got sick.”

“And then what?”

“Then God came.”

Kenzie feels herself freeze. “I see. Was that a good thing?”

Faith flops backward and stretches out her arms, curling the edges of the rug around her.

“Look, I’m a cocoon.”

“Tell me about God,” Kenzie prompts.

Faith rolls toward her. Wrapped in the blanket like the chrysalis she’s mentioned, her face is the only visible part of her body.

“She makes me feel good, all warm, like when I get to sit in the pile of clothes that just came out of the dryer. But I don’t like it when she hurts me.”

Kenzie leans forward. “She hurts you?”

“She says she has to, and I know she doesn’t want to, because she tells me after that she’s sorry.”

Kenzie stares at the little girl, at her hands with their definitive marks. As a guardian ad litem she has seen many things, most of them not very pleasant. “Does God come to talk to you when it’s dark in your room?” she asks, and Faith nods. “Can you touch her? Or see her face?”

“Sometimes. And sometimes I just know it’s her.”

“Because she’s hurting you?”

“No … because she smells like oranges.”

At that, Kenzie gives a startled laugh.

“Really?”

“Uh-huh.” Faith picks up a figurine in her dollhouse. “Want to play?”

Kenzie looks at the replica of the farmhouse. “This is beautiful,” she says,

running her forefinger over the delicate curve of the oak banister. “Did Santa bring this, too?”

“No, my mom made it. It’s what she does for work.”

Kenzie knows from years of experience that the most likely explanation for Faith’s wounds is either self-infliction or infliction by someone close to her. Someone who’s convinced her that she’s making Faith suffer out of love for her. Kenzie stares at the dollhouse, precise and perfect, thinking hard. Even after all the times she’s seen it happen, is it difficult to believe that parents who seem otherwise normal might be monstrous to a child. “Honey,” Kenzie says, “is your mommy doing this to you?”

“Doing what?”

Kenzie sighs. It is almost always impossible to get an abused child to admit who’s abusing her.

In the first place, she lives with the fear of retribution promised for breaking her silence. In the second place, there’s a twisted gratification system in place–the child finds, on some sad level, that the episodes are measures of attention.

Then again, sometimes kids don’t point a finger because there’s nothing to point to. A select few really do walk into doors and get black eyes,

or tumble off a table and get concussions … or maybe even spontaneously bleed. Mariah certainly doesn’t harm her daughter in full view; Faith doesn’t exhibit aversive behavior around her mother. Maybe press exposure isn’t the best thing in the world for a little girl, maybe Faith could stand to socialize more–

but these things alone do not constitute abuse.

The door opens suddenly. Mariah stands there holding a pile of sheets, surprised to see Faith and Kenzie. “I’m sorry,” she says awkwardly. “I thought you were in the playroom.”

“No problem. I was just admiring your dollhouse. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Mariah nods, blushes. Setting the sheets on the dresser, she heads for the door. “I’ll give you two some privacy.”

“Really, it’s fine if–“

“No,” Mariah interrupts. “It’s all right.” And she leaves, trailing the faint scent of citrus perfume.

Kenzie’s last case involved a nine-year-old girl who lived with her grandparents because her mother had abandoned her. They were a couple that went to church every Sunday and made sure she had nice clothes for school and a hot breakfast each morning. And roughly once a week the little girl would wake up in the middle of the night to find her grandfather raping her. He told her if she said a word to anyone, she’d be out on the street.

This is running through her mind as she pulls onto the highway, heading away from the Whites’

house. Although there is no proof that this new case of hers is anything like the last one, there are resonances that Kenzie cannot put from her mind.

There is something being hidden here. It’s written all over Mariah White; it’s why she makes it a point not to be in the same room as Kenzie for longer than five minutes. Sighing, Kenzie pulls down the visor to block the sinking sun.

Maybe it’s embarrassment over the institutionalization. Maybe it’s only what Colin White told her–that Mariah intentionally went into hiding to avoid prosecution. But then, why would she have come back? And could there be more to it than that?

In her two sessions with Faith, Kenzie has the sense that the child would prefer to stay with her mother. But she doesn’t know if that’s because she dislikes Jessica White or because Mariah has blackmailed her into staying.

On the other hand, maybe Mariah White left New Canaan ignorant of Colin’s plans to change custody. Maybe she was fleeing in the best interests of her child. There has been no hint from any medical personnel she’s interviewed that Mariah White is a possible catalyst for any of Faith’s physical or psychological problems. Maybe Faith is just a little girl with a particularly overactive imagination.

A car cuts Kenzie off, sending her swerving into the breakdown lane. Pumping her brakes, she rolls to a stop, and passes her hand over her eyes. Focus, focus. So many close calls.

She gently eases back into traffic,

wondering if the worst thing Mariah’s done is to simply, blindly, believe that her daughter is telling the truth.

November 14, 1999 It was James’s idea, initially, to run a Sunday-morning show–just on the principle that airing an atheist’s views on the most common day of Christian worship was sure to create controversy. And although Ian has at least seven scripts ready to go, none seem appropriate anymore. He’s talking impromptu, off the cuff. There is only so much he can say before it will be used against Faith, and Mariah. And then again,

there is only so much he can say that is neutral,

before raising the suspicions of his executive producer.

The lights are hot on his face now, and the wide mouth of camera one pivots in front of him as he tosses–deliberately–a Bible onto the grass behind him. Unlike most of his studio tapings, this one–on location–has an audience. It’s a small one, since the lion’s share of the people congregated around Mariah’s home are zealous believers, rather than atheists. But that’s exactly why he’s chosen a biblical text as the subject of his diatribe.

“”Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and … offer him there for a burnt offering.”" Ian glances around at those listening. “Yeah, you heard it right. Abraham is supposed to kill his child, just to prove that when God says “Jump!” he asks “How high?”‘

And what happens? Abraham does it. He puts a knife to Isaac’s throat, and at the last minute God shows up and basically says he was just foolin’.” Ian snorts. “This is the sort of God you worship? A Supreme Being who looks at his subjects like pawns? You ask any of those fine men of the cloth just over yonder and they’re gonna tell you this here is a story about faith, about putting yourself in the hands of the Lord and letting him make it work out for the best. But this isn’t a story about faith. This isn’t even a story about Abraham. This here’s a story about Isaac.

“What I want to know, what the Bible doesn’t bother to tell me, is what Isaac thought when his father set him down on that altar in the middle of nowhere. What he felt when his father touched a blade to his neck. Whether he cried,

whether he wet his pants. The person who got lost in this story is a child. Now, as a good Christian, you’re supposed to respect Abraham for doing what he was told. But I’ll tell you something. As a human being, I do not respect that man at all. I have contempt for a God that uses a child in such a manner. And I’d be a far piece more likely to pledge myself to a parent who stands between a despot–even an allegedly heavenly one–to keep him from reaching a child.” He raises his brow as the camera moves in for his close-up. “I only hope that Miz White–mother of Faith–pays heed to this.”

Someone calls out “Cut!” and Ian turns away, grabbing a towel from an assistant and wiping the makeup and sweat from his face. He collects his notes from another assistant and stalks back toward the Winnebago, oblivious to the murmuring of the crowd that was listening.

Either they got it or they didn’t.

There are two ways to read his broadcast, and Ian damn well knows it. Either people will believe that his final line was meant to accuse Mariah of being like Abraham, prostituting her child just because God and the media want it that way. Or else people will hear Ian praising Mariah for not being like Abraham,

for taking her daughter away, even fleetingly, from these same greedy powers.

He doesn’t much care how his fans perceive it,

actually. The only reactions he cares about are Mariah’s and James’s. He wants Mariah to have heard it one way, and James to have heard it the other.

The door opens and closes behind his executive producer. James sits down at the table and props up his feet. “Nice broadcast,” he says easily. “But I thought you might talk more about the kid.”

“Isaac?”

“Faith White.” James shrugs. “Just on account of us being here for a few weeks now. I think viewers are expecting more.”

“More what?”

“More … I don’t know. More heart.

More guts. More proof than theatrics.”

Ian feels a muscle tic in his jaw. “Just say what you mean to say, James.”

The producer holds his hands up. “Jesus H. Christ, don’t jump down my throat here.”

“You know that rumor about me being a temperamental asshole? I’d like to cash in on it right now.”

“All I’m telling you, Ian, is that you called me from the road and intimated that you were onto something regarding the White case. And then you come home and do two live shows and barely mention it.

Faith White is the cash cow here, Ian. The mother lode. Isaac and Abraham? Yeah,

they’re nice, but you can save them for when you’ve got a contract renewed with a network.” He peers into Ian’s face. “There better be something going on. Something that’s going to go up like a bottle rocket, with you holding right onto its tail.”

When Ian remains impassive, James scowls. “You hear me?”

Ian’s head swivels slowly, his eyes connecting with James’s. “Boom,” he says.

“That’s Betelgeuse,” Faith says,

pointing. “The red one that’s part of Orion.” From her position on the ratty football blanket,

Kenzie blinks at the night sky. She wraps her winter coat more tightly around her. “That’s Taurus,” Faith adds. “The reason it’s so close is because Orion is trying to shoot it.”

“You know a lot about stars.”

“We studied them in school before I stopped going. And my dad used to show me constellations sometimes, too.”

It is the first time Faith has ever brought up Colin without being prompted. “Did you like looking at stars with your father?”

“Yes,” Faith murmurs.

Kenzie draws up her knees and tries a different tack. “My father used to play hockey with me. Ice hockey, actually.”

Faith laughs, surprised. “You played ice hockey?”

“Yeah, I know. I pretty much sucked at it. But I had five older brothers, and I don’t think my father ever actually noticed that I was a girl.” At Faith’s giggle, she’s glad she’s said it, but that doesn’t keep Kenzie from recalling the sting of feeling unwanted by her family.

“Were you the goalie?”

Kenzie smiles. “Most of the time I was the puck.”

Faith rolls to her side, propping up on an elbow. “Does your dad still live around here?”

“He lives in Boston. I don’t see him very often.” She hesitates only a moment before adding, “I miss him.”

“I miss my dad, too.” The words are as quiet as the night, absorbed into the sway of the trees around them. “I don’t want to, but that doesn’t keep it from going away.”

“Why don’t you want to?”

“Because he did something awful,” she says, low.

“Something that made my mom cry.”

“And what was that?”

Faith doesn’t speak. After a moment Kenzie realizes that she is weeping silently.

“Faith?”

The girl turns away, burying her face in her own shoulder. “I don’t know!” she sobs.

“I was talking to him, and then there was this other lady in the bathroom, and he left. He left, and I think it was because I said something wrong.”

“You said nothing wrong, honey. It was a problem between your mom and your dad.”

“No, he just doesn’t want to live with me.”

“Your father does want to live with you,” Kenzie explains. “And so does your mother. They both love you very much. That’s why a judge and I have to help decide which house you should go to.”

Involuntarily, she recalls the Sunday-school legend of King Solomon. When two women claimed they were both the mother of one baby, he suggested cutting the infant in half with a sword, to discover which parent would relinquish her claim on the child rather than see it hurt.

Textbook wisdom: problem solved, and no drop of blood shed. But that was just a story. In the real world, often both parents were completely worthy, or completely unworthy. In the real world, there were mitigating circumstances. In the real world, children were often the ones who swept up the messes their parents had left behind.

November 15, 1999 Malcolm Metz comes into the conference room where Lacey Rodriguez has been told to wait and props a hip against the edge of the table.

“You bring me any?” he asks.

She pauses, her turkey and coleslaw on rye hovering before her mouth. “Nope. As it is,

you’re funding this one.”

Malcolm grunts. “What’s black and tan and looks good on a lawyer?”

“I don’t know. What?”

“A doberman.” He grins, takes the sandwich from her hand, and stuffs one end into his mouth.

“Very nice. I never would have thought of the coleslaw.” He wipes his lips with her napkin and hands back the sandwich. “So what have you got?”

She taps a sheaf of papers. “What do you know about Kansas City?”

“Everything’s up to date there. Hell, I don’t know. Isn’t that why I’m paying you?”

Lacey grins. “Not nearly enough,

Malcolm. My contact at the airlines came through. Guess where Mariah White went into hiding last week?”

Metz takes the list she offers, scans the list of names. “Big deal,” he says. “The whole world knows she was gone with the girl.”

Lacey stands up and flips to the first page of the list, to the first-class passengers. “Does the whole world know that Ian Fletcher was on the same plane?”

“Fletcher?” Metz considers his earlier meeting with the man, the teleatheist’s assertion that something big, something Metz was not privy to, would be used to expose Faith as a sham. They’d gone over testimony, and Fletcher had never mentioned this little morsel. Clearly, this trip has something to do with his grand plan.

Metz smiles, silently filing this trump card in his mind. Fletcher might think his secret is safe, but he isn’t thinking along the lines of the law. Once Fletcher’s on the witness stand,

Metz can ask him anything at all. Once Fletcher’s under oath, he has no choice but to tell the truth.

Mariah has made a dedicated attempt to stay out of Kenzie’s way when she’s visiting Faith. If Kenzie is in the kitchen, Mariah finds something to do in the living room. If they head upstairs, Mariah goes to the basement. She is too nervous around the guardian ad litem, too certain she will say something she will later regret.

Today Kenzie has promised to French-braid Faith’s hair. “We’re playing beauty parlor today,” she tells Mariah. “You’re welcome to join us.”

“Oh, that’s all right.”

“No–really. I’d like you to. Part of my evaluation involves watching you interact with Faith.”

Mariah ducks her head. It will only be for a little while. And surely it will look worse if she refuses. “Okay,” she says, and then she grins. “As long as you don’t give me a perm.”

Kenzie follows her up the staircase to Faith’s room. As soon as she knocks, the door swings open. “I’m ready!” Faith shouts. “I washed my hair and conditioned it and everything.” Kenzie sits on the bed and begins to stroke Faith’s hair. It slides through her hands like silver. “You want an outside braid or an inside braid?”

Faith glances at her mother, and they both shrug.

“We’re about at the ponytail stage,” Mariah confesses. “Anything would be a treat.”

Kenzie separates the hair at Faith’s crown into three segments. “When I was Faith’s age, my hair was about an eighth of an inch long all the way around my head.”

“Her father wanted her to be a boy,” Faith whispers to Mariah.

Kenzie nods. “It’s true. Of course, the first thing I did when I got old enough was grow my hair down past my butt.”

Faith giggles. “Ma,” she says in a stage whisper. “Kenzie said butt.”

“Oops.” She braids sections of hair,

feeding in a strand from the side of Faith’s head.

Mariah watches intently, as if she will be called upon to recite the procedure from memory.

“I grew up in Boston,” Kenzie says breezily. “You ever been to Boston, Faith?”

“No.” Faith squirms on her heels.

“But I went to Kansas City.”

Kansas City. The words strike her like a blow, so much so that Mariah finds herself short of breath. Mariah hasn’t been dishonest with Kenzie, but she hasn’t volunteered information about her attempt to take Faith away either. She is certain that the things she does not want to tell Kenzie are written all over her face–her involvement with Ian, Ian’s brother,

Faith’s effect on Michael. “You went to Boston when you were little, sweetie,” she says,

desperate to change the subject. “You just don’t remember.”

“I remember Kansas City,” Faith says.

“Honey … we don’t need to bore Kenzie with that.”

“Oh, I’m just braiding. Go right ahead. When did you go to Kansas City?”

“Last week,” Faith says.

Kenzie lifts her head. “I took her away from here. From this,” Mariah adds softly.

“What made you decide to leave then, rather than earlier?” Kenzie asks.

Mariah turns away. “It had been going on too long. It was time.”

“It would have nothing to do with the fact that your ex-husband said he’d be filing for a change of custody?”

Mariah scrambles to think of what she can tell the guardian ad litem without making herself look as if she had been dodging the law. Which, of course,

would be the truth. She glances at Faith, intent to steer off the topic before her daughter blurts out that they stayed with Ian. “It wasn’t intentional,”

Mariah answers. “I just wanted to make things easier.”

“Why Kansas City?”

“It was the first plane that left the airport.”

Faith bounces on the bed. “Yeah, and guess who was in first class–“

“Faith.” The word, sharply spoken, brings the little girl up short. Mariah tightens her mouth,

fully aware of Kenzie’s stare set square on her, of Faith’s confusion. “We came back;

that’s what matters. When I heard about papers being served, we came back.”

Kenzie does not blink. Mariah feels sweat bead under the collar of her shirt; she reads the GAL’S eyes as clearly as if her impression were written across them: This woman is lying. But to tell Kenzie more is to admit to running from Colin’s threat of a lawsuit.

To make public her relationship with Ian.

To violate his privacy. She stares at Kenzie, unwilling to back down this time.

To her surprise, Kenzie does. She doesn’t whip out a notepad or ask more questions or rebuke Mariah at all, but instead shifts the slightest bit away from Mariah on top of Faith’s bed. Then she bends back toward her task, humming softly, winding Faith’s beautiful hair through her fingers like yarn through a loom. And all Mariah can do is watch as Kenzie wraps together all the loose ends.

“Ian, oh, God. I’m so glad you called.”

He curls his hand around the receiver, smiling.

“That’s one hell of a reception, sugar.”

“I think she knows. The guardian ad litem.

She was asking questions today and Faith blurted out something about Kansas City and–“

“Mariah, calm down. Take a deep breath. … There you go. Now, what happened?”

He listens, frowning as she recounts the conversation with Kenzie van der Hoven. “Well, I don’t think that’s anything conclusive. All she knows is that someone who struck Faith’s fancy was on the plane. That could mean one of the Backstreet Boys, or Prince William.”

“But she knows what day we left, and when Colin filed the papers.”

Ian gentles his voice. “She was gonna find that out anyway. The best defense you have is that you came back with Faith.” He hesitates,

thinking of his meeting with Metz. “I told you not to worry, Mariah. I told you that I’d figure this out. Don’t you trust me?”

For one horrible moment, she does not answer.

And then Ian can feel it, a rush of warmth that reaches through the phone connection before her voice does. “I do, Ian.”

He tries to respond, and finds that there are no words.

“I’m sorry that I brought you into this,” Mariah adds.

Ian closes his eyes. “Sugar,” he says, “there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

November 16, 1999 On the day that Kenzie meets with Millie Epstein, the blue-plate special at the caf`e in the center of New Canaan is fish and chips. “Very bad,” Millie says, clucking over the menu. “You don’t even know if it’s done in canola, or what.”

It seems like the perfect introduction, so Kenzie leans forward, elbows on the scarred table of the booth. “I guess you’re pretty careful about what you eat these days.”

Millie glances up. “Why should I be? If I croak again, I’ll just call for Faith instead of a paramedic.” Watching the younger woman’s jaw drop, Millie smiles. “I’m kidding. Of course I’m careful. But I was careful before the heart attack, too. I ate well, took my medicine like clockwork. Let me ask you something:

Did you see my hospital records?”

“I did.”

“Do you believe I was resurrected?”

Kenzie flushes. “I don’t know if “resurrected” was the term for it, exactly–“

“Then what is the term for it? A miracle?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of an extremely irregular nervous-system response.”

“Aha,” Millie murmurs. “Do you believe in God, Ms. van der Hoven?”

“That’s not the issue here. And I think I’m the one who’s supposed to be asking the questions, Mrs.

Epstein.”

The older woman continues blithely. “It makes me a little antsy, too. I’m not a praise-be-to-Jesus type–probably wouldn’t be even if I was a Christian.”

“The issue in this custody hearing is where the best home is for Faith, ma’am. With all due respect, that doesn’t leave a lot of room for God.”

“See, I don’t agree with you.” Millie picks at her teeth with her thumbnail and shakes her head. “A more religious woman would say that there’s always room for God, but that’s neither here nor there. To me, you can’t do your job without asking yourself whether or not you believe. Because if you don’t, then Faith must be lying–and that’s going to affect your decision about where she belongs.”

“Mrs. Epstein, you aren’t a guardian ad litem.”

Millie looks at Kenzie squarely.

“No. But you’re not her grandma.”

Before Kenzie can respond, the waitress arrives. “How you doing, Millie?” she says,

with the familiarity of a town where one can walk down the street and actually recognize people.

“Irene, do they do up the fish and chips in canola oil?”

The waitress laughs. “You think this is The Four Seasons? Far as I know, it comes out of a Mrs. Paul’s freezer box.”

Millie reaches across the table and pats Kenzie’s hand. “Go with the soup. It won’t make you sick later.”

But Kenzie orders only a Coke. “What we need here is a deli,” Millie muses.

“You have any idea how long it’s been since I had good pastrami?”

Kenzie’s lips twitch. “A lifetime?”

Millie laughs. “Touch`e,” she says, then runs her forefinger along the edge of a packet of Equal. “I used to have tea parties with Faith when she was about three. She’d come over my house,

and we’d take out all my grandmother’s linens, and we’d dress up in old bathrobes I had from the forties–the ones with those pink feathers on the cuffs and collar, what is that called?”

“Marabou.”

“That’s right. Marabou. Isn’t that some kind of reindeer?”

“That’s caribou.” Kenzie smiles. “Mrs.

Epstein, I appreciate your concern for your granddaughter. You can rest assured that I’m only trying to make a decision in her best interests.”

“Well, if you think Faith’s lying, then it must be pathological and contagious. Because her mother believes her, and so do about five hundred people camped outside, not to mention a host of doctors who saw my heart stop beating.”

Kenzie is silent for a moment. “Remember the broadcast of War of the Worlds?”

“Of course. My husband and I were just as scared as anyone.”

“That’s all I’m saying, Mrs. Epstein.

People hear what they want to hear. They believe what they want to believe.”

Millie slowly sets down her glass of water and unconsciously rubs her hand over her heart. “What do you want to believe, Ms. van der Hoven?”

Kenzie does not hesitate. “That whatever I recommend will be right for Faith. And you, Mrs.

Epstein? What do you want to believe?”

That time can be turned back. That nightmares stop. That Colin never entered my daughter’s life. “I want to believe there’s a God,”

Millie says clearly. “Because I sure as hell know there’s a devil.”

“Hunstead,” Metz calls from his throne at the end of the conference table, “you and Lee get confirmation. I want a copy of the ticket that got her to Kansas City–“

“Sir?” an associate asks. “Are we talking about Kansas City, Missouri, or Kansas City, Kansas?”

“Where the fuck have you been for the past hour,

Lee?” Metz asks. “Hunstead, fill in your anamnesis-challenged colleague as to what we’ve been discussing while he’s been dreaming of Baywatch.”

“How about rental-car agencies?” Hunstead suggests. “If Fletcher was the one who provided the transportation, it should be in his name, or his production company’s. Otherwise Mariah White would have just used a credit card.”

“Very nice,” Metz says. “Go with it. I also want copies of local hotel registers.”

Two associates sitting to Metz’s right at the chrome-and-glass conference table scrawl the directive onto their pads. “Lee, I want to know all the cases in the past ten years where custody’s been overturned and given to the father. And I want to know why. Elkland, start scouring our list of experts for psychiatrists. We need one who’s willing to say that once someone’s a nutcase, they’re always a nutcase.” He glances up, palming an apple that’s been sitting in front of him. “What do you call a lawyer encased in concrete at the bottom of the ocean?”

The young lawyers glance at each other. Finally Lee raises his hand. “A good start?”

“Excellent! You win the deposition this afternoon,

with the court psychiatrist who’s evaluated Colin White.”

“What are you going to do?”

Metz laughs. “I’m going to fucking get down on my knees and pray to fucking Allah.”

He jots several notes while the younger lawyers scatter to do his bidding, then pushes the intercom button. “Janie, I don’t want to be bothered.”

It used to be a joke between them; he used to say, “I don’t want to be bothered unless God calls.” What made it funny, of course, was that most people in the firm didn’t discount that as an impossibility. But since taking on the White case, Metz has stopped using that tag line.

He does not like Colin White, but then again he does not particularly like any of the clients he defends. He admires White, though, for the challenge the man presents. Metz has a golden opportunity here to show law at its best –something that has little to do with justice, and more to do with seduction.

In a couple of weeks he will walk into a courtroom, take the life of a fuck-up like Colin White, and totally turn it around. He will do such a good job of re-creating his client that a judge and the press and maybe even the prosecutor will believe what he says.

Metz laughs to himself. And they say surgeons have a God complex.

He is not a religious man. In fact, the last brush with organized worship he can recall was at his own bar mitzvah. Metz remembers the red dress his mother wore, the boxy suit that hung on his frame, the surprising sound of his voice as it sang out the words of the Torah. He’d been so scared he nearly pissed his pants, and then later at the reception, when his aunts leaned over him in clouds of perfume to offer kisses and receive nachas, he’d come close to passing out. But it had been worth it when his father had come with him to the bathroom, stood beside him at the urinal, and said without meeting his eye, “Now you’re a man.”

It was the first time Metz had used his words to remake a person. In that case, himself.

He shrugs his attention back to the file before him. Colin White, Mariah White, Faith White. Those are the names on the legal documents; “God” comes up nowhere. And according to Malcolm Metz’s interpretation of the law,

that’s as it should be.

November 18, 1999 In her entire lifetime, Kenzie has never been inside a temple. She knows that she is gawking at the richly decorated Ark, at the unfamiliar Hebrew prayer books, at the bema. “It looks just like a church,” she says,

and then covers her mouth in embarrassment.

Rabbi Weissman grins. “We gave up dancing naked around a fire about a year ago.”

“I’m sorry.” Kenzie meets his eye.

“I don’t have much familiarity with Judaism.”

“Apparently you can still be an expert.” He gestures toward a pew. “So you want to know if Faith White’s really having conversations with God. Ms. van der Hoven, I have conversations with God. But you don’t see Hollywood Tonight! outside my office.”

“So you’re saying–“

“I’m saying that God, in His infinite wisdom, hasn’t shown up in drag to play checkers with me.” He takes off his glasses and polishes them on his shirt. “Wouldn’t you be a bit suspicious if a little girl with absolutely no legal training suddenly announced she could and would sit as a judge?”

“Is that the same thing?”

“You tell me. So she’s talking to God. So what. I don’t see God telling her that the Israelites are going to cream the PLO. I don’t see God telling her to keep kosher. I don’t see God even inspiring her to come to Friday-night services. And I have a very hard time believing that if God did choose to manifest Himself in human form to a Jew, He would choose one who hadn’t followed a code of Jewish living.”

“As I understand it, religious apparitions don’t appear only to the pious.”

“Ah, you’ve been talking to priests! Look at the Bible. The people who’ve been lucky enough to speak to God are either extremely religious or positioned to do the most good for the religion.

Take an example: Moses wasn’t raised Jewish, but he embraced his religion after speaking with God. I don’t see that happening here.” He grins. “As comforting as it is for us to nurse the fantasy that God might buddy up to the average Joe who doesn’t go to church or temple and prays only to secure Super Bowl bets, it’s not realistic. God’s forgiving, but He’s also got a long memory, and there’s a reason Jews have been following a pattern of life for five thousand years.”

Kenzie looks up from her notebook. “But I’ve met with Faith, and I don’t think she’s intentionally trying to take people for a ride.”

“Neither do I. Don’t look so surprised.

I’ve met with her, too, you know; she’s a sweet kid. Which leads me to believe someone’s putting her up to this.”

Kenzie thinks back to the moment in Faith’s bedroom, when Mariah silenced her daughter with a single glance. “Her mother.”

“That was my conclusion, yes.” He settles back against the pew. “I know Mrs. White isn’t much of a practicing Jew, but some things stay with you. If repressed childhood traumas can come back to haunt you, why not religious practice? Maybe it was ingrained at an early age in Mrs. White–preverbally, even–and she’s somehow communicated this to her daughter.”

Kenzie scratches her chin with the top of her pencil. “Why?”

Rabbi Weissman shrugs. “Ask that fellow Ian Fletcher. God can be a very lucrative silent partner. The question isn’t why, Ms. van der Hoven. It’s why not?”

November 19, 1999 “You certainly raise a good point,” Father MacReady says. He walks beside Kenzie on the grounds of the church, setting up small tornadoes of leaves with the toe of his cowboy boot. “But I can raise a good one, too. Why would a child–or her mother, as you suggest–choose to be a stigmatic?”

“Attention?”

“Well, there is that. But seeing God isn’t nearly as big a draw as, say, seeing Elvis. And if you want to stick to Catholicism, I’d have to say that visions of Mary have always attracted a bigger, more emotional crowd than sightings of Jesus.” He turns to Kenzie, the wind ruffling his hair.

“Stigmatics are subject to intense scrutiny by the Catholic Church. Far as I know, if you commune with Elvis, you only have to answer to someone like Petra Saganoff.”

“It doesn’t seem odd to you that a little Jewish girl is having a vision of Jesus?”

“Religion’s not a competition, Ms. van der Hoven.” He looks at Kenzie carefully. “What’s really upsetting you about this case?”

Kenzie crosses her arms, suddenly cold.

“I’m convinced Faith isn’t lying. Which means that I can’t help but believe that maybe someone else is putting her up to this …”

“Mariah.”

“Yes,” Kenzie sighs. “Or else …

she’s really seeing God.”

“And you have a problem with that.”

She nods. “I’m a cynic.”

“So am I,” Father MacReady says. “Every now and then, even up here, we get a crying statue or a blind man who can suddenly see, but these things don’t usually happen unless you’re David Copperfield. I’m the first person who’ll tell you that devout faith can change a person. But work miracles? No way. Heal?

Uh-uh. And the truth is, the only piety Faith’s got going for her is in her name. She didn’t grow up believing in God. She doesn’t care even now, really, who God is.

Except for the fact that God is a friend.”

Father MacReady stares toward the edge of the church’s property. The sun has broken through the clouds, reflecting in blue and gold rays like a stock photo on religious paraphernalia.

He can remember his mother pulling the car over to sigh at the beauty of a moment like this. “Look at that,

Joseph,” she’d say. “It’s a Jesus sky.”

“Ms. van der Hoven,” he muses, still staring off into the distance, “have you ever seen the sun set in Nepal?”

Kenzie follows his gaze to the dazzling palette of the sky. “No, I haven’t.”

“Neither have I,” Father MacReady admits.

“But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.”

Vatican City, Rome The forerunner of the Office of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was instituted in 1231 by Pope Gregory IX,

and occasionally carried out its mission by stretching suspects on the rack, searing them with live coals, flogging, and burning them at the stake. It has been a long, long time since the Inquisition, and the office is now devoted to furthering correct Catholic doctrine rather than censuring heresy. Yet Cardinal Sciorro sometimes walks through the halls and smells ashes;

sometimes he wakes in the night because he’s heard people scream.

The cardinal prefect likes to think of himself as a simple man, a holy man–but a fair man. Since the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith acts like a court of appeal, he knows he is well suited to his position. He wears responsibility as surely as he wears his mozzetta, and it weighs just as heavily on his shoulders.

He is in his office, sipping his morning chocolate and reading over paperwork that’s been piling up, when he first comes across it. “The MotherGod Society,” he says slowly, testing the words on his tongue; they leave a bitter aftertaste. He skims the brief: A group of Catholic women of significant numbers wish to appeal the censure of His Excellency the Bishop of Manchester, claiming that the words of one Faith White, who is not Catholic, are not heretical.

The cardinal prefect calls to his secretary, an attentive monsignor named Reggie with the look of a beagle about him. “Your Eminence?”

“What do you know about this MotherGod Society?”

“Well,” Reggie says, “they were demonstrating in St. Mark’s Square yesterday.”

These militant Catholic women are becoming more and more of a force. For a moment, the cardinal feels a pang of nostalgia, for the way the world was before Vatican II. “What did Bishop Andrews consider heresy.”

“From what I’ve gathered, the Jewish visionary says God is female.”

“I see.” The cardinal prefect exhales slowly, thinking of Galileo, Joan of Arc, of other victims of alleged heresy. He wonders what good it will do if, after this appeal, the MotherGod Society remains censured. He can stop these women from putting heresy into print, from spreading false dogma, because they’re followers of Catholicism.

But Faith White–she’ll still be out there, saying whatever she wants.

Lacey Rodriguez kicks off her shoes and slips the tape into the VCR. Not for the first time since she’s been an investigator, she mulls over how thoughtless employers can be. A few more perks, a better benefits package–hell,

maybe even a personal greeting every now and then … any of these things might have gone a long way to keep Ian Fletcher’s cameraman from selling out a videotaped copy of Millie Epstein’s stress test for a measly ten thousand dollars.

She pushes the fast-forward button on the remote control, not having the slightest interest in the old woman’s cardiac rhythms or huffing and puffing on the treadmill. Then she sits forward, transfixed, her fingertips covering her slowly spreading smile.