hen love begins to sicken and decay,

It useth an enforc`ed ceremony.

There are no tricks in plain and simple faith.

–William Shakespeare,

Julius Caesar October 27, 1999 Mariah stands beside Joan in the middle of the judge’s chambers, terrified of making a wrong move. She is uncomfortably aware that she’s wearing leggings and an oversized sweatshirt, while Joan is wearing an olive suit, and both Colin and his attorney are dressed in Armani.

She stands ramrod straight, as if posture might count when it comes to deciding who will retain custody of Faith.

“Mariah,” Colin whispers behind his lawyer’s back, but the man hushes him.

The judge has been diligently scribbling away at his desk, and although it is past three o’clock, neither Joan nor the other lawyer has made any move to remind him that the hearing was supposed to start. Mariah realizes that the judge is wearing earphones. Very tiny ones, like news anchors wear–the kind that snake over the shell of the ear like a hearing aid. He reaches beneath his desk, pushes at something, and then tugs the tiny plugs from his ears. “All right,” he says,

turning to Colin’s lawyer, whom Mariah thinks she may have seen on the regional news. “Mr.

Metz, what do you have to say?”

The man smooths his tie with a feline preening that makes Mariah think of a ferret. “This is a matter of life and death, Your Honor. Mariah White is endangering my client’s child.”

Mariah feels everyone’s eyes settle on her. A flush works its way up her neck.

“Your Honor, my client only recently became aware of the dog-and-pony show that has become his child’s life, and the constant threat of physical endangerment. He’s in a position now to provide her with the safety and security she needs, and he feels that it is of the utmost importance that she get out of her mother’s household. It’s why we felt strongly about an ex parte hearing, and it’s why we’re confident that you’ll decide my client should have full custody.

But in the interests of safety, we want her removed from the home right now, before any more irreparable damage is done.”

Judge Rothbottam purses his lips.

“Six weeks ago your client legally ceded custody to his ex-wife, which leads me to believe he didn’t consider her a threat to the child’s welfare then. As far as I can see, the only thing that’s changed is a little press activity on the front lawn. What’s life-threatening about that?”

“In addition to the psychological stress of being paraded in front of the media daily, my client’s daughter has been hospitalized for intense trauma to the hands.”

“Trauma?” Joan sputters. “Your Honor, there’s absolutely no medical proof that Faith’s injuries were caused by trauma. In fact, several doctors have gone on record saying as much, and, as I’m sure you know, there’s an issue here that Mr. Metz is conveniently ignoring, which is that the child is apparently performing miracles and speaking to God. And as for the media–

well, their descent on the household has absolutely nothing to do with my client. She has done everything humanly possible to provide her daughter with a normal life in spite of them.

Mr. Metz’s charge of endangerment is nothing but a thinly veiled attempt to turn a weak case into the sort of wildly dramatic spectacle in which he prefers to be involved.”

Mariah cannot take her eyes off Joan Standish. She’s never heard the woman string together that many words, and so compellingly.

Judge Rothbottam snorts. “Well,

Ms. Standish, that was some pretty histrionic grandstanding yourself.”

Metz sits forward at the edge of his seat, a pit bull ready to spring. “Your Honor, the issue that Ms. Standish is trying to obscure is that a child is in jeopardy. Three months ago,

when my client left, his daughter was a well-adjusted little girl. Now she’s a victim of psychotic hallucinations and serious bodily injury. I urge you to err on the side of safety here, and give my client temporary custody of the child until the hearing.”

Joan completely ignores Metz.

“Judge, the divorce has been hard enough on Faith. The last time she saw her father, he was half naked and carousing with some other woman.”

“I beg your pardon!” Metz says,

livid.

“Don’t beg mine. The last place Faith White should go is to her father’s house, Your Honor. Please let her stay with my client.”

Judge Rothbottam picks up his earphone and begins to laboriously wind the wires into a tight sailor’s noose. “I think I’ve had enough for one afternoon. It doesn’t appear to me that the child is in any immediate crisis, Mr. Metz.

We’ll have a custody hearing in five weeks.

I trust that’s enough time?”

“The sooner the better, Your Honor,”

Metz says. “For Faith’s sake.”

The judge does not bother to look up from his calendar. “I’m appointing a psychiatrist,

Dr. Orlitz, whom I want to evaluate your client, Metz; and your client, Standish; and their daughter as well. It’s a court order, which means that you all will cooperate. You’re free to get your own psychiatrists, of course, but you’ll also speak to Dr. Orlitz. I’m also appointing Kenzie van der Hoven as guardian ad litem, and I’ll expect you to give her any information she needs. If you have an objection to Ms. van der Hoven, I want to hear it now.”

Joan whispers to Mariah, “She’s good.”

Metz feels his client’s eyes on him, and shrugs. He doesn’t know jackshit about GAL’S in New Canaan, New Hampshire. Manchester is one thing, but for all he knows Kenzie van der Whatever is Joan Standish’s sister. “We think that’s fine, Your Honor,” Metz announces in a strong, clear voice.

“We do, too,” Joan adds.

“Marvelous. The custody hearing will begin Friday, December third.”

“I have a conflict,” Metz says, poring over his calendar. “I’m scheduled to be taking a deposition in the case of a boy who’s divorcing his parents.”

“Is that supposed to impress me, Mr.

Metz?” Judge Rothbottam asks. “Because it really doesn’t. Find someone else to do it.

You’re the one who wants this case tried expediently.”

Metz folds the leather binding of his Filofax. “I’ll be here.”

“Joan?”

“I don’t have any conflicts.”

“Excellent.” The judge pushes the earphones into place. “I can’t wait.”

Joan pulls into the driveway and touches Mariah’s arm. “Remember what I told you.

This isn’t the end of the world.”

Mariah’s smile does not quite reach her eyes.

“Thank you. For everything.” She folds her hands in her lap. “I was impressed.”

“Girl, you ain’t seen nothing yet.” Joan laughs. “I might have taken on this case for free, just to stand up to Malcolm Metz. Now, you go on inside and play with your daughter.”

Mariah nods and gets out of the Jeep, flinching at the questions hurled from distant reporters, and at the sight of a tremendous poster of Faith’s face held by a large group of women. She feels fragile, an ornament made of spun sugar, but she steels her composure while she climbs the porch steps. As soon as she opens the door,

her mother and Faith come running into the parlor. After a searching look at Mariah’s face, Millie turns to her granddaughter. “Honey, I left my reading glasses on the arm of the couch. Could you get them?”

As soon as Faith is out of hearing range,

Millie closes in. “So?”

“In five weeks we have to go to court.”

“That son of a bitch. I knew you–“

“Ma,” Mariah interrupts. “Don’t do this now.” She sinks down on the stairs and scrubs her hands over her face. “This isn’t about Colin.”

“It’s not about you, either, Mariah, but I’ll bet five weeks from now it will be.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That your Achilles’ heel, unfortunately,

is a target as big as a barn. And that Colin and his fancy lawyer are sure to strike there.”

“By then Joan will have come up with something,”

Mariah says, but she knows she is trying to convince herself as well as Millie. What court would pick her as the better parent?

Maybe Colin’s right–maybe it is her fault. She has made poor choices before regarding Faith; this could be yet more proof of her inadequate parenting: one rash decision, one selfish move, one conversation that took root in Faith’s imagination and brought her to this point. There have been times, after all, when Colin questioned Mariah’s judgment with good reason.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Millie mutters,

pulling Mariah upright. “You go right upstairs and steam that look off your face.”

“What–“

“Take a hot shower. Clear your head.

I’ve seen you get like this before, all full of doubts about whether you’ve got the good sense God gave a beetle, much less a competent mother. I swear, I don’t know how Colin does it, but the man’s a Svengali when it comes to your mind.”

She pushes Mariah up the stairs as Faith comes into the parlor with her grandmother’s eyeglasses.

“Oh, good,” she says to the girl. “Let’s go see if we can find Sunday’s comics.”

Aware of Faith’s eyes following her,

Mariah smiles with every step. She deliberately shoves aside the thoughts that batter away at her:

what Joan will say in court, what the judge will make of Mariah’s hasty escape to Kansas City, what Ian will say and do now that they have returned. She undresses and turns the shower on so that a white mist fills the bathroom.

Inside the stall, the water pounds heavy and hot,

but Mariah cannot stop shivering. Like the survivor of an accident, the close call hits all at once, and she is by turns frightened and stunned.

What if, five weeks from now, her daughter is legally removed? What if, once again, Colin gets his way? Mariah slides down to the tiled floor, arms crossed tight, and lets herself fall apart.

After Faith is bathed and put to bed, Mariah walks into the living room to find Millie peering out from the edge of the curtains. “Like Yasgur’s Farm,” she murmurs, hearing Mariah come up behind her. “Look out in the field. You can see all those little flickering lights … What were they holding up back then–candles?”

“Cigarette lighters. And how would you know about Woodstock?”

Millie turns and smiles. “Don’t underestimate your mother.” She reaches for Mariah’s hand and squeezes. “You feeling better yet?”

At the simple, sweet concern, Mariah almost breaks down again. She lets her mother lead her to the couch and lays her head in her lap. As Millie begins to smooth Mariah’s hair back from her brow, she can feel some of the tension ebb, some of the problems fall by the wayside. “I wouldn’t say I’m feeling better. Numb is more like it.”

Millie continues to stroke her daughter’s hair. “Faith seems to be holding up all right.”

“I don’t know if she understands what’s happening.”

There is a moment of silence. “She isn’t the only one.”

Mariah sits up, color flooding her face. “What do you mean by that?”

“When are you going to tell me the rest?”

“I already told you everything that happened in court.”

Millie tucks a strand of Mariah’s hair behind her ear. “You know, you look just the way you did when you stayed out with Billy Flaherty two hours past curfew.”

“It was a flat tire. I told you that almost twenty years ago.”

“And I still don’t believe you. God, I remember sitting up in bed watching the clock and wondering, What on earth does Mariah see in him, with his brooding and his moods?”

“He was only sixteen, and his father was an alcoholic, and his parents were in the middle of a divorce. He needed someone to talk to.”

“The thing is,” Millie continues, as if Mariah has not spoken, “the other night I was lying in bed watching the clock and wondering, Why on earth is Mariah staying with Ian Fletcher?

And you come home, and you’ve got that same face on all over again.”

Mariah scoffs and turns away. “I don’t have any face on.”

“Yes you do. It’s the one that says it’s already too late for me to keep you from going over the edge.” She waits for Mariah to look at her again, slowly, and with great reservation. “So you tell me,” Millie says softly. “How hard was the fall?”

A stillness settles over Mariah as she realizes that her mother is no more prescient than Mariah herself. All the moments she’s awakened in the middle of the night a split second before Faith’s cries fill the dark,

all the times she has looked at her daughter’s face and cleaved a lie in half with a single look. This is the codicil of motherhood: Like it or not, you acquire a sixth sense when it comes to your children–viscerally feeling their joy, their frustration, and the sharp blow to the heart when someone causes them pain.

“Fast.” Mariah sighs. “And with my eyes wide open.”

As Millie opens her arms, Mariah moves into them, drawing close the comfort of childhood with a great rush of relief. She tells her mother of Ian, who was not following her when she thought he was, who was not the person he made himself out to be.

She describes the way they would sit on the porch after Faith went to sleep, and how they would sometimes talk and sometimes just let the night settle over their shoulders. She does not tell Millie of Ian’s brother, of what Faith might or might not have briefly done for him. She does not tell Millie how it felt to have Ian’s body pressed against hers, heat from head to toe, how even during hours of sleep, he held on to her hand as if he could not bear to let her go.

To her credit, Millie does not act surprised or ask if they are speaking of the same Ian Fletcher. Instead she holds Mariah close and lets the explanations fall where they may. “If this happened between you,” she says carefully, “where do things stand?”

Mariah glances through the gauzy curtains at the smattering of lights that attracted her mother. “With him out there and me in here,” she answers, smiling sadly. “Just like before.”

Sometimes in the middle of the night Faith thinks she can hear something crawling under her bed, a serpent or a sea monster out of water or maybe the tiny, hooked feet of rats. She wants to toss off her covers and run into her mother’s room, but that would mean touching the floor, and there’s a very good chance that whatever is making the noise will wrap itself around her ankle and eat her with its rows of sharp teeth before she ever makes it into the hall.

Tonight Faith wakes up, certain it’s coming for her, and screams.

Her mother comes rushing into the room. “What’s the matter?”

“They’re biting me!” she cries. “The things that live under the bed!” But even as she speaks, the world comes back to her, strange black shapes turning into lamps and dressers and other ordinary things. She glances down at her hands, still fisting the covers, Band-Aids covering the small holes beneath the knuckles. They don’t hurt at all now. They’re not bleeding either. They tingle a little,

as if a dog were pushing his wet nose into them.

“You okay?”

Faith nods.

“Then I think I’ll go back to sleep.”

But Faith doesn’t want her mother to leave.

She wants her to be sitting here, on the edge of the bed, thinking of nothing but Faith. “Ow!” she cries impulsively, clutching her left hand.

Her mother turns quickly. “What? What happened?”

“My hand hurts,” Faith lies. “A big,

sharp, needle pain.”

“Here?” her mother asks, pressing.

It doesn’t hurt at all. It feels sort of nice, actually. “Yes,” Faith whimpers. “Ow!”

Her mother crawls into the bed, gathering Faith into her arms. “Try to rest,” she says, her own eyes closing.

In the dark, Faith falls asleep smiling.

October 28, 1999 Clearly, her mother has been eating like a pig.

That’s the only explanation Mariah can come up with to make sense of the absolute dearth of food in the house. Having been gone for a week, she’d have expected the fruit and the milk to go bad, but there’s no more bread, and even the peanut-butter jar is empty. “God, Ma,” she says, watching Faith pick at a dry bowl of Rice Krispies. “Did you host a party?”

Affronted, Millie sniffs. “That’s the kind of gratitude I get for keeping house?”

“I would have expected you to replenish the pantry, that’s all. For your own comfort.”

Millie rolls her eyes. “Oh, and of course the vultures out there would have just waved politely as I went on my merry way.”

“If they harassed you, you could have harassed them right back.” Grabbing her purse, Mariah strides to the door. “I’ll be back in a little while.”

But eluding the reporters is not as simple as Mariah expects. Inching out of the driveway, she nearly hits a man who pushes his daughter’s wheelchair in front of her car. Police notwithstanding, hundreds of hands pat her windows,

her bumpers, her trunk. “God,” she breathes,

astounded by the sheer numbers of people, gratefully picking up speed a quarter mile past her own driveway.

She believed that, without Faith in tow, there was less of a chance that she’d be pursued, but three cars tail her as she makes her way into the grocery store in a neighboring town. Keeping careful track of them in the rearview mirror,

she deliberately takes side streets instead of main roads, hoping to lose them before she reaches her destination. Two of the cars are gone by the time she leaves the outskirts of New Canaan. The third follows her into the parking lot but turns in a different direction, leading Mariah to realize sheepishly that this might have been a neighbor or ordinary citizen, rather than a reporter on her trail.

In the grocery store she keeps her head ducked, reaching for melons and lettuce and English muffins and not making eye contact with other shoppers. She rounds the aisles with grim determination, set on making it through the checkout line without being noticed. But she has just reached into a frozen-food locker when a hand closes around her wrist and pulls her behind a tall display of ice-cream cones.

“Ian.”

He is dressed down in jeans and a tattered flannel shirt, a baseball cap pulled low over his face. He has not shaved. Mariah touches his cheek. “This is your disguise?”

His hand slides from her wrist to her shoulder.

“I wanted to know what happened in court.”

A small light goes out inside Mariah.

“Oh.”

“And I wanted to see you.” Ian’s fingers curl around the soft skin of her inner arm. “I needed to.”

She looks up at him. “We go back to the judge in five weeks.” She can just make out his eyes beneath the bill of his cap, pure Arctic blue and focused with the most singular intensity,

pinning her like a butterfly.

Another shopper rounds the corner,

toddler twins hanging on either side of her cart like docking buoys. She glances dismissively at them, then continues down the aisle. “We can’t be here like this,” Ian says. “One of us is bound to get recognized.” But he makes no move to leave, and instead strokes his fingers under her chin,

making her arch like a cat.

Just as suddenly, he steps away. “I’ll do anything I can to make sure Faith stays with you.”

“The only way the judge is going to let me keep her is if he thinks her life’s perfectly normal,” she says evenly. “So the best thing you could do, Ian, is leave.” She grants herself permission for one more glance at him,

one more touch of his hand. “The best thing for Faith,

and the worst thing for me.” Then she reaches for the handle of her shopping cart and continues down the aisle,

her heart tripping, yet her face as serene as if she’d never seen him at all.

The telephone rings when Mariah is nearly asleep. Groggy and dazed, she reaches for it assuming that Ian is on the other end, and too late realizes that even before dreams descend, he has already claimed a part in them.

“I am so glad to hear that you’re still answering the phone.”

“Father MacReady,” Mariah says, sitting up in the bed. “Isn’t it a little late?”

He laughs. “For what, exactly?”

“Calling.”

There is a beat of silence. “I’ve been led to believe that it’s never too late for a calling.

Sometimes they just catch you behind the knees and knock you down like a linebacker.”

She swings her legs over the edge of the bed,

pleats the edge of the top sheet. “You’re twisting my words again.”

“For what it’s worth, I prayed for you,” Father MacReady admits quietly. “I prayed that you’d be able to take Faith and get away.”

“Your hotline is apparently a little rusty.”

“It may be, you know. Which is why I wanted to talk to you. Your mother had the pleasure of turning away a colleague of mine today who’d like to take a look at Faith.”

“My daughter isn’t the Catholic Church’s lab specimen, Father,” Mariah says bitterly. “Tell your colleague to go back home.”

“That’s not up to me. It’s his job. When Faith starts saying things that don’t match up with two thousand years of teachings, they have to come evaluate it.”

It makes Mariah think of that old adage–

if a tree falls in the woods and no one’s there to hear it, does it make a sound? If you do not want religion, do you have the right to send it away?

“I know you’re not going to want to hear this,” Father MacReady says, “but I’d consider it a personal favor if you’d allow Faith to speak with Father Rampini.”

There are people at the edge of her property now who have gathered in the name of Christianity. She did not ask them to come; she would certainly like them to leave.

The judge would consider it a mark in her favor if she managed to get them to leave.

The simplest way to do that is for them to hear,

straight from the mouth of their Church, that Faith is not who they would like her to be.

But then again, it means exploiting Faith, and Mariah is not sure she wants to do that even if it leads to a greater good. “Faith and I don’t owe you any favors. We’re not Catholic.”

“Technically,” Father MacReady says,

“neither was Jesus.”

Mariah sinks back into her pillow, feels it brush against the sides of her face. She thinks about those trees falling in the woods, silent and unobserved, until one day someone comes along and notices with a start that the entire forest is gone.

October 29, 1999 Father Rampini knows many ways to make a statue weep, none of which have anything to do with Jesus. You can rub the marble face with calcium chloride, which makes water condense from the air in false tears. You can press small balls of lard into the eyes, which melt when they warm to room temperature. You can even use sleight of hand,

dabbing at the statue with a sponge to make moisture when your audience is distracted. He’s seen fake magician’s blood hidden up a sleeve, stigmata spontaneously bursting with a flick of the wrist. He’s watched rosaries go from silver to gold, scientifically explicable metallurgic reactions.

His gut feeling? Little Faith White is full of crap.

He believed, at first, that it would be easy to discredit the child. A couple of discreet inquiries, a tearful admission, and he’d be back at the seminary before supper. But the more he learns about Faith White, the more difficult it is becoming to dismiss her out of hand.

Yesterday he interviewed many of the reporters on the front lawn, trying to uncover a secret book deal the mother might have made or word of a TV exclusive. Historically, true prophets didn’t profit–either by money,

esteem, or comfort. Had he found even the subtlest hint of self-aggrandizement, he’d have been on the Mass Pike that afternoon.

All right, so she wasn’t trying to become rich and famous by acting like a visionary. But neither was there proof apart from Faith White’s alleged vision–

like the spring at Lourdes that cures ailments, or the picture of the Virgin not made by human hands,

given to Blessed Juan Diego and still hanging four hundred years later in the shrine in Mexico City. He said as much to Father MacReady, who–

maddeningly enough–barely looked up from the sermon he’d been writing in his office. “You’re forgetting,” MacReady said. “She’s a healer.”

That morning Father MacReady accompanied him to the medical center. While the parish priest visited members of his congregation who were recuperating on the patient floors, Father Rampini spent hours reading the reports about Millie Epstein, with no firm conclusions.

Medically, the woman had died. Certainly she was alive and kicking now. And yet rumor had it that Faith touched the woman to bring her back–a laying-on of hands smelled a little fishy.

The only way to prove that Faith White was an out-and-out liar would be to interview her directly. And that is what he’s slated for today.

Father Rampini has decided on a three-pronged attack: First, he will narrow down the truth regarding this female vision–Mary maybe, but certainly not God. Second, he will prove that the vision is inauthentic. Finally, he’ll examine the alleged stigmata and list the reasons they aren’t the genuine article.

Father MacReady asks him to remain silent during his introduction to Mariah White, and out of professional courtesy Father Rampini agrees.

“If you wait here,” the woman says, “I’ll get Faith for you.”

Father MacReady excuses himself to use the bathroom–Lord knows, he eats enough breakfast sausage to fell a horse, much less upset his bowels–while Rampini idly glances around. For a farmhouse, it is in remarkably good shape, the exposed beams of the ceiling straight and sanded, the floors buffed to high polish, the steely milk paint and flocked wallpaper meticulous.

It looks like a residence featured in Country Home, except for the glaring evidence that real people abide here: a Barbie doll wedged between the bananas of a decorative fruit bowl, a child’s mitten snugged like a skullcap over the knob of the banister. He sees no Palm Sunday crosses tucked behind mirrors, no Sabbath candles on the dining-room table, no evidence of religion whatsoever.

He hears footsteps on the stairs and draws himself erect, ready to stare down this heretic.

Faith White skids to a stop three feet in front of him and smiles. She is missing one of her front teeth. “Hi,” she says. “Are you Father Rampenis?”

Mariah White’s face goes scarlet.

“Faith!”

“Rampini,” he corrects. “Father Rampini.”

The parish priest appears in the doorway,

laughing. “Maybe you should just call him Father.”

“Okay.” Faith reaches for Rampini’s hand,

pulling him toward the stairs. Rampini is aware of two things at once: the rasp of Band-Aids against his own palm, and the extraordinary magnetism he feels when their gazes connect.

It reminds him of being a child and seeing the first big snow stretch over his family’s Iowa farm–so diamond-bright and pure that he could not tear his eyes away. “C’mon,” she says. “I thought you wanted to play.”

MacReady folds his arms across his chest.

“I’ll stay down here. Have a cup of coffee with your mom.”

Rampini can see by the look on the woman’s face that she believed she’d be present for the interview. Well, good. It will be easier to get out the truth in her absence.

Faith leads him to her bedroom and sits down in the middle of the floor with a Madeline doll and a collection of interchangeable outfits. Pulling out his notepad, Rampini jots down several ideas. If he remembers correctly, Madeline lived in a parochial school. It is possible that this so-called religious innocent knows more than people think.

“Do you want her skating clothes,” Faith asks, “or her party dress?”

It has been so long since he’s played with a child–since he’s done more than examine hoaxes and heretics and write lengthy dissertations on his findings–that for a moment he is nonplussed.

Once this might have come easily to him. Now he is an entirely different man. “What I’d really like is to play with your other friend.”

Faith’s mouth pinches shut. “I don’t want to talk about her.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” she says, and jams Madeline’s leg into a set of tights.

Well, Rampini thinks, surprised. The visionary who chatters away about what she’s seen is usually lying. Genuine seers, in fact, often have to be coerced into discussing their visions. “I bet she’s very beautiful,” he urges.

Faith peeks up from beneath her lashes. “You know Her?”

“I work in a place where a lot of people study and learn about God. That’s why I wanted to talk to you so badly, so that we can compare what we know.

Does your friend have a name?”

Faith snorts. “Duh. It’s God.”

“Your friend told you this. She said, “I am God.”"

“No.” Faith slides a shoe onto the doll’s foot. “She said, “I’m your God.”"

He writes this down, too. “Does she come whenever you need her to?”

“I guess.”

“Could she come now?”

Faith glances over her shoulder. “She doesn’t want to.”

Against his better judgment, Rampini looks toward the same spot. Nothing. “Is she wearing a blue dress?” He struggles for a term for Mary’s mantle that would be familiar to a seven-year-old. “One with a hood?”

“Like a raincoat?”

“Exactly!”

“No. She wears the same thing over and over.

It’s a brown skirt and top, but it’s all together in one piece, and it looks like the things people from olden times wear on TV. Her hair is brown and comes to here.” Faith touches her shoulders. “And she has those shoes that you can wear on the beach and even into the water and everything without your mom getting mad. The ones with Velcro.”

Father Rampini frowns. “She has Tevas?”

“Yeah, except hers don’t have the Velcro and they’re the color of throw-up.”

“I bet you wanted to see this friend of yours for a while, before she first appeared to you.”

But Faith doesn’t answer. She rummages in the closet, returning with the Lite-Brite box. Father Rampini feels a pang of sentiment –he remembers giving the toy to his own son,

long before he was ordained. Has it been around so many years?

Faith is watching him curiously. “I’ll let you do the yellows.”

Rampini shakes his thoughts back to center. “So … you asked to see her?”

“Every night.”

Father Rampini has seen enough alleged visionaries to make comparisons. The religious devotees who pray to see Jesus for years and then have Him suddenly appear are always the ones who’ve simply gone off their rockers. Even,

sad to say, in the case of that very sweet elderly nun from Medford whom he was sent to evaluate the previous winter. Compare that to the Fatima children,

who were simply tending sheep when Mary appeared,

unexpected. Or Saint Bernadette, who was gathering wood near a garbage dump when Our Lady materialized.

Heavenly visions come from heaven, but out of nowhere.

Yet, according to Faith, she’d been asking for one–

religiously, one might say.

“I wanted a friend really bad,” Faith continues. “So every night I wished on a star.

Then she came.”

He hesitates before writing on his notepad.

Desiring a friend wasn’t quite the same thing as praying for a miraculous appearance, but there were cases of child visionaries who’d played, so to speak, in the fields of the Lord. Saint Herman-Joseph romped with Mary and a boy Jesus; Saint Juliana Falconieri had visions where the Christ Child wove her a garland of flowers.

His eyes fall on Faith’s hands,

grasping the tiny pegs and stuffing them into the gridded holes of the Lite-Brite. “I heard that you hurt yourself.”

She quickly hides her fists behind her back.

“I don’t want to talk anymore.”

“Why? Is it because I asked about your hands?”

“You’ll make fun of me,” she whispers.

“As a matter of fact,” Father Rampini says gently, “I’ve seen other people who have the same kinds of cuts you do.”

This catches Faith’s attention. “Really?”

“If you let me take a look, I can tell you if yours are the same or different.”

She takes one hand and places it on the floor between them, uncurling her fingers like the petals of a rose. With her other hand she peels back the Band-Aid. In the center of her palm is a small hole. The flesh around it isn’t mangled on either side of the hand, and neither are there protuberances such as Saint Francis of Assisi had, as if nails were stretching the skin from beneath its surface. “Do they hurt?” Rampini asks.

“Not now.”

“When your hands are bleeding,” he asks slowly, “do you sometimes think about Jesus?”

Faith frowns. “I don’t know anyone named Jesus.”

“That’s the name of God,” the priest explains.

“No it’s not.”

A seven-year-old can be very literal. Is Faith saying this because God specifically told her He is not Jesus? Or simply because He hasn’t said His name at all? Or is it because this vision, far from being heavenly, is satanic?

Rampini wants to ask her more about God’s name –like the story Rumpelstiltskin, guessing until he gets it right. It is not Mary, not Jesus. But is it Beelzebub? Yahweh?

Allah? Instead he hears himself say, “Can you tell me what it feels like when God talks to you?”

Faith looks down into her lap, not speaking.

Father Rampini stares at her and thinks of the time he first saw his son. He remembers watching the baby fingers spider over Anna’s breast as she rocked him. Although he has learned, in ascetical theology training, that feelings are not important, and that celebrating mass and administering the sacraments are the moments one is closest to God, he is not thinking about it now. That fullness of heart, a divinity spilling over, he’s only felt twice in his fifty-three years. Once watching his wife after childbirth. And then again six years later, when the Holy Spirit settled over him like one of those early Midwestern snowstorms, numbing him to the pain of the car accident that had taken his family, and leaving forgiveness in its place.

It takes Father Rampini a moment to notice that Faith has taken one of the Lite-Brite pegs, a red one, and pushed it into the hole on her right hand. The peg sticks at the halfway point.

The wound doesn’t reopen, though, and as Faith flexes the muscles of her hand, it eventually falls out. Then she plugs in the Lite-Brite, and Father Rampini is jolted by the incandescent blaze of the flower. “When She talks, I feel it here,” Faith says, making a fist and bringing it up to his heart.

Father Rampini has known for a long time that he moves in a world skeptics consider to be impossible, but, to him, Catholicism–

specifically, its theology–has been a haven of logic. The world makes no sense–what other reason could there be for the drunk driver who picked his family’s station wagon to plow into, instead of the other three hundred cars he passed that night?

Religion, with its godhead, its order, and its salvation, has literally been Rampini’s saving grace.

He runs the cold water in the bathroom sink and splashes it on his face. As he dries himself off and looks up into the mirror of the medicine cabinet, he hesitates for a moment. What is he going to say about Faith White? On the one hand, she has the humility of the blessed, and she’s not gaining anything but a notoriety she does not seem to want. On the other hand, she’s spouting heresy.

He begins mentally to chronicle the pros and cons. Rampini has yet to see a verified case, but Faith may indeed suffer from stigmata.

However, she’s also seeing something that no one else has ever seen. Technically, God isn’t a man. But that does not mean He is a woman.

He sits back down on the lid of the toilet and stares blankly at the collection of naked Barbie dolls in the bowl of the tub.

Faith White is, for all intents and purposes, a perfectly ordinary secular girl. She doesn’t structure her life around prayer; she probably couldn’t tell a Hail Mary from the Pledge of Allegiance. It is in her favor that verified visionaries like the Fatima children and Saint Bernadette weren’t likely candidates for visions either.

But at least they were Christian.

Rampini sighs. Father MacReady was correct–there are many compelling things about Faith.

But, ultimately, her vision isn’t one of them.

She’s saying things that quite simply are completely out of line.

Father Rampini opens the bathroom door and starts back down the hall, his decision made.

Yet with each step he thinks of the saints of the sixteenth century, who were scorned and vilified for their radical beliefs. Saints whose autopsies, years after the persecution, revealed strange scars etched onto the walls of their hearts that looked like the letters of Jesus’ name.

Malcolm Metz looks at the beat-up Honda that belongs to Lacey Rodriguez, one of a battalion of excellent private investigators his firm has used over the years.

He points to a tiny statue of Mary glued to the dashboard with a piece of double-edged tape.

“Nice touch.”

“Yeah, well.” Lacey shrugs. “I didn’t know if someone might see the car.”

“From the way it sounds, you’ll probably have to park a mile away. You’ll be in touch with me later?”

“This afternoon, when I get there. And twice a day after that.”

Metz leans against the rusted hood of the car.

“I don’t need to tell you how imperative it is for you to dig up dirt on the mother.”

Lacey lights a cigarette and offers one to Metz, but he shakes his head. “How hard could this be?” she says, exhaling. “The woman was in a freaking mental institution.”

“Unfortunately, possession is nine tenths of the law, and the child is still living with her mother. I want to hear if she keeps the girl up too late or feeds her something with Red Dye Number Two or talks on the portable phone too close to the tub when the kid’s in it. I want to know what the hell she’s saying to those priests and rabbis who keep coming to the house.”

“You got it.”

“Just don’t do anything that won’t be admissible in court. No dressing up like the plumber’s assistant and going to check the pipes, only to come out with evidence seized without a warrant.”

“I only did it once,” Lacey says,

chagrined. “Are you going to bring it up forever?”

“I might.” Metz claps her shoulder. “Go to work.” He watches the Honda weave down the street, and then walks toward the building that houses the law office. His eyes flicker toward his name, carved on the stone plaque outside. The glass-and-chrome doors swing open on sensor,

as if they have been waiting for him all along.

Mariah takes refuge in the basement workshop. With determination she picks up a thin block of maple, intent on turning it into a miniature kitchen table, but she is too distracted to do it well. Frustrated, she sits beside her half-finished dollhouse and rests her head in her hand.

She can see the tiny bathroom fixtures and the knotty-pine floors in the bedrooms and the kitchen cabinet that is still ajar. She can see into the most private parts of this house without even having to try.

This is what it’s like, she thinks, to be God.

She considers this for a moment, thinking of all the young girls who play so easily at being a divine being–able to put their dollhouse families through their paces. Mariah glances up at the ceiling and wonders if God is doing the same thing to her and Faith.

She remembers, suddenly, why as a child she never had people in her dollhouses. The family dog would butt up against the house and the miniature baby would tumble down the stairs before Mariah had a chance to grab him. Or the mother figurine would be facedown on the bed, and Mariah would think that the doll had been sobbing her heart out all night while she herself slept. It made her feel guilty–she couldn’t play with all of the dolls at once, couldn’t take care of all their needs.

It was no great bargain to be godlike, to have the power to help and soothe and comfort and know that she couldn’t save everyone all the time.

So she grew up to build houses without dolls, places where furniture was bolted down and glued into position, homes where nothing was left to chance. And yet, Mariah realizes that she still didn’t make a clean escape.

Manipulation, responsibility, watchfulness.

It is not so different, really, from being a mother.

From the Manchester Diocese of the Catholic Church Manchester, NH, October 29, 1999–

His Excellency the Bishop of Manchester has issued a notice in response to the queries by priests, religious, and laity regarding the activity of Faith White, resident of New Canaan, NH, who claims to be allegedly hearing and seeing heavenly revelations.

A serene and attentive examination of the matter was undertaken by the diocese, and Faith White’s visionary claims have been ruled false. It is our duty to underline one major doctrinal error:

erroneous language regarding Christ, who is not and should not be referred to as a woman or mother of any kind.

The MotherGod Society, which has been primarily responsible for transmitting the message of Faith White via pamphlet and preaching, is spreading teachings which are not regarded as Catholic dogma and which must be ignored.

That night, when the MotherGod Society first hears of Bishop Andrews’s official denunciation of Faith White, they hand out apples. They dispense more than three hundred Jonagolds from a local orchard and invite people to take a bite out of the myth of male religion.

“The Garden of Eden was just the beginning,” they shout.

“Eve didn’t cause the fall from grace.”

The woman who has become their leader, Mary Anne Knight, mills through the crowd shaking hands. She knows this is not as radical and new a movement as people might think. Twenty years ago,

she’d studied at Boston College with Mary Daly, who went on to leave the Catholic church after saying it was rooted in sexism. But Mary Anne loved Catholicism too much to renounce it. One day, she prayed, there will be room for me in the Church.

Then she heard about Faith White.

She stands on an overturned apple crate, her cohorts gathering around and waving half-eaten cores. Pulling her fleece jacket tighter, she covers a T-shirt provocatively printed MY GODDESS GAVE BIRTH TO YOUR GOD.

“Ladies,” she cries out, “we have the pastoral letter from Bishop Andrews here.” She extracts a Zippo lighter from her pocket. “And this is what we have to say in response.” With a flourish, she sets fire to the corner of the missive and lets it burn all the way to her fingertips.

As the crowd of enthusiastic women cheers,

Mary Anne smiles. Let the Manchester diocese think that a gaggle of women are just letting their petticoats hang out; let the stuffy old bishop write warnings till he’s blue in the face–there are some things His Excellency hasn’t taken into consideration. The MotherGod Society still has Faith White. And two representatives en route to the Vatican,

planning to launch a formal protest.

Mariah is brushing her teeth and flipping through the late-night channels on the television when she sees Petra Saganoff’s face, and the backdrop of her own house. “Hollywood Tonight! has uncovered a new development in the case of Faith White. In an unexpected move, the father of the child, Colin White, has reappeared in New Canaan to seek full custody of his daughter.”

Millie, wearing cream on her face and a flannel nightgown, comes rushing into the room.

“Are you watching this?”

The screen changes to shots of the courthouse,

where Colin and his attorney appear to speak into several microphones at once, their shoulders hunched against the bitter wind. “It’s a tragedy,” Colin says to the cameras. “No little girl should be raised like that–” His voice breaks,

seemingly unable to continue.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” Millie says.

“Did he hire an attorney or an acting coach?”

Petra Saganoff’s face reappears.

“Malcolm Metz, the attorney for Mr.

White, alleges that being placed in Mariah White’s custody is physically and psychologically endangering Faith. Of course,

the pending custody case is now a matter of public record. We’ll have more on this story as it unfolds. This is Petra Saganoff, for Hollywood Tonight!”

Millie walks to the television set briskly and turns it off. “It’s drivel.

No one with a brain is going to believe anything Colin says.”

But Mariah shakes her head and spits toothpaste into the sink. “That’s not true. They’re going to see him crying over his daughter, and that’s what they’re going to remember.”

“The only person who you should worry about is the judge. And judges don’t watch garbage TV like that.” Mariah, rinsing out her mouth,

pretends not to hear. She wonders if Joan saw it, if Ian saw it, if Dr. Keller saw it. Her mother is wrong. You can reach a lot of people, without even trying–Faith is proof of that.

She keeps the water running, until she hears Millie walk out of the room.

He knows when to call her, because he has repositioned the Winnebago so that it faces Mariah’s bedroom. After the light goes out,

Ian closes his eyes, trying to imagine what she is wearing to bed, whether her legs scissor between the cool sheets. Then he picks up his cell phone and dials, his gaze on the small pair of windows. “Turn on the light,” he says.

“Ian?”

“Please.” He hears her shift, and then there is a golden glow to the room. He cannot see her,

but he pretends he can; he imagines her sitting up and gripping the phone and thinking of him. “I’ve been waiting on you.”

Mariah settles into her bedding–he can tell by the soft sigh of the fabrics. “How long?”

“Too long,” Ian answers, and there is more to the words than easy flirting. Watching her walk away from him in the grocery store without being able to follow took all his self-control. He pictures her hair, spread over the pillow like a spray of gold, the curve of her neck and shoulder a puzzle piece made to fit flush against him. Curling the phone closer, he whispers, “So, Miz White. You gonna tell me a bedtime story?”

He expects to hear a smile in her voice,

but instead it is thick with tears. “Oh,

Ian. I’m all out of happy endings.”

“Don’t say that. You have a long way to go between here and that custody battle.” He stands up,

willing her to come toward the window. “Don’t cry,

sugar, when I can’t be there.”

“I’m sorry. I– Oh, God, what you must think of me! It’s just this whole thing, Ian.

One nightmare after another.”

He takes a deep breath. “I’m not going to do a story on Faith, Mariah. I may even pull out of here entirely, make it look like I’m onto something else. At least until after the hearing.”

“It won’t make a difference. There are plenty of other people left around to turn Faith into some kind of martyour. Did you see Hollywood Tonight!?”

“No–why?”

“Colin was on, breaking down and saying that Faith can’t live like this.”

“He’s putting the media to work for him,

Mariah. His lawyer’s just savvy enough to get his client’s face out in front of the public for sympathy.” He hesitates for a moment. “It’s not such a bad idea, actually. You ought to turn right around to Hollywood Tonight! and invite them to hear the other side of the story. Give ol’

Petra an exclusive.”

Mariah goes absolutely silent. “I can’t do that, Ian.”

“Why, of course you can. I’ll coach you through it, just like the lawyer did for your ex.”

“It’s not that.” Her voice is small and suddenly distant. “I can’t have a reporter asking me all kinds of questions, because there are things that have happened to me that I don’t want spread around.

Things I haven’t even told you.”

He learned long ago that sometimes the wisest course is to keep quiet. Ian sits on the edge of the Winnebago’s couch and waits for Mariah to tell him what he learned weeks before.

“I was suicidal seven years ago, and Colin had me sent to an institution.”

“I know.” Ian thinks of The Boston Globe, and feels his gut twist.

“You … you do?”

“Well, of course,” he says, aiming for a light tone. “Before I was smitten by your considerable charms, I was doing a story on you and your daughter.”

“But–but you didn’t say anything.”

“Not in public, no. And not in private, because it didn’t make any difference to me. Mariah,

you’re the sanest person I know. And as for not having anything to live for anymore, well, I’m doing my damnedest to keep you from thinking that these days.”

He hears it then, the joy breaking over her.

“Thank you. Thank you so much for that.”

“I aim to please.”

“If memory serves, you hit the mark,”

Mariah says, and they both laugh.

Then there is a comfortable quiet between them,

punctuated by the distant calls of owls and barking dogs. “You should do it, though,” Ian adds after a moment. “Have Petra Saganoff over. It’s the best way to show a great number of people that your little girl is just a little girl. Tell Petra she can shoot B-roll and do a voice-over as she sees fit, but no interviews.” He smiles into the phone. “Fight back, Mariah.”

“Maybe I will,” she says.

“That’s my girl.” He sees a shape appear at the window of the bedroom. “Is that you?”

“Yes. Where are you?”

He watches her turn, scan the darkness for a face she cannot see. Ian flickers the lights in the Winnebago. “Here. See?” Her hands come up to press against the glass, and Ian remembers them against the flat of his chest, cool and curious.

“I wish I was with you now.”

“I know.”

“You know what I’d do if I were with you now?”

“What?” Mariah asks breathlessly.

Ian grins. “Go to sleep.”

“Oh. That wasn’t what I had in mind.”

“Maybe that, too, then. But I haven’t had a night’s rest like I did with you in … God,

well, years.”

“I think … I think I’d like to wake up with you,” Mariah says shyly.

“That would be a fine thing, too,” Ian agrees. “Now, get away from that window. I don’t want the whole crowd out here laying eyes on you.” He waits until he hears the covers rustle, Mariah pulling up the sheets to cover herself. “Good night.”

“Ian?”

“Hmm?”

“About what you said before–you won’t leave now, will you?”

“I’ll stay as long as you like,” he says, and then watches the small square of light in her bedroom go black.

Mariah has no sooner put the phone on the cradle than she realizes her mother is standing in the slightly open doorway. She does not know how much Millie has heard, how long Millie was standing there.

“Who was calling so late?” her mother asks.

“No one. Wrong number.” With the weight of Millie’s gaze thrown over her like another quilt, Mariah turns onto her side, toward the window, toward Ian.

For reasons Father MacReady does not understand,

Father Rampini has not hightailed it back to Boston after sending along his recommendation that afternoon to Bishop Andrews. He has spent several hours in the guest room at the rectory, not packing but instead tying up the telephone line with faxes he sends from his laptop computer. So it is a surprise when Father MacReady comes downstairs for a glass of milk before bedtime and finds the visiting priest sitting at the kitchen table with a bottle of wine.

“Chianti?” Father Rampini says, a corner of his mouth lifting. “Why, Joseph,” he jokes in an Irish brogue, “where are you hidin’ the good malt whiskey?”

Father MacReady grins. “I find it useful to break across cultural barriers every now and then.”

“Want some?” Rampini hands the other priest a glass filled to the rim with wine, then lifts his own and downs it in one swift motion.

Well, it’s not milk, but it’ll put him to sleep all the same. Father MacReady tips his own glass and finishes every drop.

Rampini laughs. “Wanna have a spitting contest now?”

“No thanks. I already feel sick. But I was taught it’s not good manners to let someone drink you under your own table.”

The other priest smiles. “I’ll be a good guest. I promise to pass out neatly in my chair.”

MacReady drums his fingers on the tabletop.

“How long do you think you’ll .be a guest?”

“If you need–“

“No, no,” he says placatingly. “Stay as long as you want.”

Rampini snorts. “You’re trying to think of a nice way to ask why I’m still here.”

“The thought did cross my mind.”

“Mmm.” The visiting priest scrubs his hands over his face. “I’ve been asking myself that,

too. Do you know what I was doing all afternoon?”

“Ringing up a tremendous telephone bill?”

“Yes, but the diocese will pay for it.

Actually, I was reading the work of a psychiatrist who talks about a young child’s image of God.

There’s a theory that the earliest roots for God are tied to an infant looking up at his mother and knowing that it’s okay to close his eyes and imagine her, because when he opens his eyes she’ll still be there.”

Father MacReady nods slowly, unsure of where this is going.

“Then a kid gets to be six, seven. He hears about God on TV, sees pictures of angels. He doesn’t know what God is,

really, but he knows from context that God is big and powerful and sees everything. There are two people the kid knows who fit that bill–his mom and dad. So he uses them as raw material. If he was cuddled a lot, he may come up with a representation of an affectionate God. If he was raised strictly, God might be more stringent.”

Father Rampini tips the Chianti bottle over his glass again. “Conversely, the kid might attribute to God the things she wishes she had in a parent–unconditional love, protection,

whatever.”

He rubs a small circle of condensation into the tabletop. “So now we look at Faith White,

whose mother–by her own admission–hasn’t always been the most devoted of parents. What happens to a child who’s always wanted her mother’s attention? And then winds up, miracle of miracles, with only a mother in her life? What is she most likely to imagine God to be?”

“A loving mother,” Father MacReady murmurs,

and then picks up the Chianti and drinks straight from the bottle. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “I thought you already wrote your recommendation to the bishop.”

“I did.” Rampini winces. “There’s just … something.” He leans back in his chair, his gaze roaming the worn walls of the rectory kitchen. “If I could just make sense of why she’s seeing a woman. Why. That would tip the scales, you know? I mean, that crap I just told you–it’s psychology. Not theology. I can read it, but I can’t believe it in my heart.”

“Maybe it’s not what she’s seeing,” Father MacReady says slowly. “Maybe it’s the way she’s interpreting it.”

“How is that any different from what I just said?”

“It is. Did you ever see that drawing, the one that if you look at it one way, turns into a bottle, and if you see it a different way,

looks like two people kissing?”

Father Rampini takes the wine away. “I think it’s time for you to stop.”

“I’m perfectly sober. You know …

whatchamacallits … optical illusions!

Well, it could just be Faith’s frame of reference that’s wrong, not her vision.” At Father Rampini’s blank look, MacReady continues. “Say you’re a little girl who knows nothing about religion. Any religion. And you live in the nineties, in a fairly conservative town, where most people look the same. Then one day someone appears out of thin air. The person is about so tall, and has long brown hair, and is wearing a dress and sandals like your mother. What do you assume you’re seeing?”

“A woman,” Father Rampini murmurs. “But it’s Christ–maybe young, without the beard–in traditional clothing.”

“There’s no reason to assume that a little girl from New Canaan would know what men wore in Galilee two thousand years ago.” Father MacReady is smiling so hard, he thinks his face might split. He feels himself being yanked to his feet as Father Rampini grabs him in a bear hug.

“Do you know what this means? Do you?”

“That you’re going to make another long distance call on my phone,” Father MacReady says,

laughing. “Go ahead. Call Bishop Andrews on my dime.”

He follows Rampini to the guest room, where the other priest scrabbles around his cluttered desk for the Manchester phone number. “Of course,”

Rampini mutters, “the Bishop’s Conference will say that Christ would make Himself known as the Lord fairly quickly, dress notwithstanding … but at least it’ll go to conference. Ah, here we are. Hand me the phone?”

Father MacReady is not listening. He holds the portable phone in one hand and Father Rampini’s Saint-A-Day desk calendar in the other.

He’s ripped off the page, so that the display is for tomorrow. Wordlessly, he hands it to the visiting priest.

Saint Elizabeth of Schonau. Died 1146. Saint Elizabeth beheld a vision of a young woman sitting in the sun and asked an angel to tell her what it meant. The angel said, “The young woman is the sacred human nature of our Lord Jesus.”

Father Rampini dials the phone. “I know,”

he says after a moment into the receiver. “Wake him up.”