This was no holy relic, no unsung, uncanonized saint.  This was her!

He knew it and yet a part of him stubbornly refused to accept it.  Impossible!  Tradition held that she was assumed body and soul into Heaven.  And even if tradition were wrong, even if her body had remained preserved for two thousand years, she would not—could not—be here in this church basement in Lower Manhattan.  It defied all reason, all belief, all common sense.

Can it be her?  Can it truly be her?

As he lurched forward he heard a voice speaking.  His own.  In his native tongue.

‡

“Puo essere lei?  Puo essere veramente lei?”

Carrie cried out in shock and fear at the sound of the strange voice behind her.  She turned and saw a man in black silhouetted in the light from the door, staggering toward her.  Reflexively, she began to dodge aside, but stopped and forced herself to stand firm.  Anyone trying to get to the Virgin would have to go through her first.

Then she saw his collar.  A priest.

“Father?”

He didn’t seem to hear.  He continued forward, trembling hands folded before him as if in prayer, eyes fixed on the Virgin as his expression twisted through a strange mixture of confusion, pain, and ecstasy.

“Puo essere lei?”

She didn’t understand the priest’s words, but the devotion in his eyes caused her insides to coil with alarm.

He knows! she thought.  Somehow he knows!

Sensing he meant no harm, Carrie eased aside and let him approach.  Her mind raced as she watched him gaze down at the Virgin.  No...obviously he meant no harm, but his mere presence was a catastrophe.  No matter what his intentions, he was going to ruin everything.

“Who are you?”

He didn’t seem to hear, only continued to stare down at the Virgin.

“Who are you, Father?”  This time she touched his arm.

He started and half turned toward her, tearing his eyes away from the Virgin at the last possible second.  Carrie hadn’t realized how old and thin he looked until now.

“It’s her, isn’t it,” he said in hoarse, accented English, and Carrie’s heart sank as she searched but found no hint of a question in his tone.  “It’s truly her!”

“Who do you mean, Father?” she said, hoping against hope that he’d give the wrong answer.

But instead of answering in words, he knelt before the Virgin, made the sign of the cross, and bowed his head.

That was more than enough answer for Carrie.  She began to shake.

I’m going to lose her.  They’re going to take her away from me!

At that moment she heard the scuff of hurried footsteps out in the old furnace room, then Dan dashed in.  He skidded to a halt when he saw the figure in black kneeling before the bier, then stared at Carrie, alarmed, confused, breathing hard.

“Hilda called me over...said there was a strange priest...”  He glanced at the newcomer.  “Who...how?”

Carrie shook her head.  “I don’t know.”

Dan stood in the center of the room, looking indecisive for a moment, then he stepped forward and laid a hand on the other priest’s shoulder.

“I’m Father Daniel Fitzpatrick, Father, associate pastor here, and I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

The older man turned his head to the side, then rose stiffly to his feet.  He stared at the Virgin a moment longer, then turned toward Carrie and Dan and drew himself to his full height.

“I am Monsignor Vincenzo Riccio.  From Rome.  From the Vatican.”

Carrie stifled a groan as she heard Dan mutter, “Oh, God.  You’re the priest from the pub!”

“You must explain this,” Msr. Riccio said, gesturing toward the Virgin.  “How...how is this possible?”

“How is what possible?” Dan said.

The older priest raised a hand.  “Please.  There is no point in trying to fool me.  I was touched by her, healed by her.  I know this is the Blessed Mother.  Do you understand?  I do not believe it, think it, or feel it, I know it.  What I do not know is why she is hidden away in this dingy cellar, and how she came to be here.  Will you please explain that to me, Father Fitzpatrick.”

Dan held the monsignor’s stare for a moment, then turned to Carrie and introduced her as Sister Carolyn Ferris.

“Carrie, this is your show.  What do you want to do?  Whatever you decide, I’m with you all the way.”

Carrie felt as if she were perched on the edge of a precipice...during an earthquake.  Her mind was numb with the shock of being discovered.  She could see no sense in lying.  The monsignor already knew the core truth.  Why not tell him the details.

And suddenly hope was alive within her.

Yes!  The details.  Maybe if he knew how the Virgin had been hidden away in a cave much like this subcellar room, he’d realize that she had to remain hidden...right here.

“It began with a scroll Father Fitzpatrick received as a gift...”

‡

“I see,” Vincenzo said softly as Sister Carolyn finished her story, closing with the details of the cures and miracles at the soup kitchen one floor above.

He had been too fascinated to interrupt her long monologue more than once or twice for clarifications.  He had studied her expression for some hint of insincerity, but had found none, at least none that he could detect in the candlelight.  And as she spoke he came to understand something about this beautiful young woman.  She was deeply devoted to the Virgin.  No hint of personal gain or notoriety had crossed her mind in bringing the Virgin here to her church.  It had seemed like the right thing to do, the only thing to do, and so she had done it.  She was one of the good ones.  He sensed a hard knot of darkness deep within her, an old festering wound that would not heal, but otherwise she was all love and generosity.  Had she always been like this, or was it the result of prolonged proximity to...her?

He turned to stare again at the Virgin.

“An incredible story,” he said into the silence.

If I were someone else, he thought, or even if I had happened to stumble upon this little room only last week, before my encounter with the Blessed Mother, I would have said they are both mad.  Good-hearted, sincere, and well intentioned, to be sure, but quite utterly mad.  But I am not someone else, and I believe every incredible word.

“Then you can see, can’t you,” Sister Carolyn said, and Vincenzo sensed that she was praying he could and would see, “that she has to remain here?  Remain a secret?”

“A secret?  Oh, no.  That is the last thing this discovery should be.  This is the Mother of God, sister.  She should have a cathedral of gold, she should be exalted as an ideal, a paradigm for a life of faith and purity.”

“But Monsignor, that isn’t what the Apostles intended when they brought her to the Resting Place in the desert.”

“Who are we to say what the Apostles intended?  And besides, these are different, difficult times.  True faith, generous and loving, seems to be on the wane, replaced by wild-eyed fundamentalist factions that call themselves holy and faithful and servants of God, yet are anything but.  Think what the physical presence of the Mother of God could mean to the Church, to Christianity, to all of humanity?  This could usher in a whole new age of faith.”

“Or mean the end of faith,” Dan said.

The statement startled Vincenzo.  “Whatever do you mean?”

He pointed to the body.  “Here she is—solid, visible touchable.  She cures the incurable.  You don’t need to believe that—it happens.  No faith is necessary when the proof is before you.”

He was right.  Was that what this was all about?  The end of the need for faith?  If so, it marked the beginning of…what?  Peace?

Dear Jesus, it all fit, didn’t it.  It all made sense now.  The discovery of the scroll, the journey of these two good people to the Holy Land, finding the remains of the Blessed Virgin, removing her from the desert, the Vatican sending him to Ireland and then New York, the apparitions, his cure, his arrival in the subcellar of this humble old church—these weren’t random events.  Three times his path and the Virgin’s had crossed: in Cork City, on the streets outside, and now in this tiny room.  There was a pattern here, a purpose, a plan.