"I don't see how the Church can object to that."
"It doesn't object, but neither does it approve. It will never say so, but I believe the Church is a little concerned about groups like this. Although they are few in number, they are growing. They go to Mass and to confession and receive Communion in the orthodox ways, as we all did earlier this morning. But every Sunday afternoon and every Wednesday night, when they gather in meetings like this, they are on their own, with nothing between them and the Spirit. Surprising things happen."
"How surprising?"
He touched her hand gently. "Stay and see."
Grace stayed.
She sat in the last row and listened to readings from the Gospel, from various books of the Old Testament—mostly the frightening ones from Ecclesiastes—and to a homily from Brother Robert. His voice was mesmerizing. He was fiery and moving as he exorted the Chosen, whom he called the Army of God, to be ever vigilant for signs as to the identity of the devil incarnate, the Antichrist.
While he was speaking, some people sat and listened quietly, but some called out Amens, others stood and held their arms aloft as they swayed back and forth in time to a music audible only to them. Grace was shocked. This was more like one of those Protestant revival meetings they put on television every so often.
Then they all began to pray. And they prayed holding hands. The woman in front of her turned and reached her hand back for Grace to take, but Grace shook her head and folded her hands in front of her. She didn't want to hold hands during prayer! What kind of praying was that?
And then it happened.
A woman in a tweed suit in the front row stood up, rigid and trembling, then fell down onto the floor and began to shake. The nurse in Grace brought her out of her own chair.
"She's having a seizure!" Grace cried.
As she started forward, hands held her back, voices told her, "No, wait. She's all right"… "She has the Spirit"… "The Spirit is upon her."
Sure enough, in a moment the woman lay still, then turned over and sat up. Her eyes were unfocused. Her tongue moved strangely as she opened her mouth and began to speak. The words that came out were like no human speech Grace had ever heard.
Suddenly, directly to Grace's right, someone else, a man in a plaid flannel shirt, sprang up rigidly from his chair. He didn't convulse but started talking in a foreign language, one that sounded exactly like the first woman's. After he had finished, he stared blankly ahead, his jaw continuing to vibrate up and down.
"Hear them?" said a voice in her ear.
She turned and it was Brother Robert, standing at her side.
"What's happening?"
"They're speaking in tongues. Just like the Apostles did on the first Pentecost Sunday." His brown eyes sparkled. "Isn't it fascinating?"
Another woman stood up and began to babble.
"Three!" Brother Robert cried. "The Spirit is strong with us tonight! And always the same tongue! I understand that in other groups they speak in many tongues. But since I have been here, the Chosen have spoken in only one tongue!"
Grace suddenly felt flushed and weak. This wasn't the safe, sane, staid Catholicism she knew, with its comfortable rituals and regimented responses. This was like one of those crazy holy-roller tent revivals. This was chaotic, frightening.
"I need some air!"
"Of course you do," Brother Robert said.
She let him take her elbow and lead her upstairs to the brownstone's front foyer where it was cool but protected from the drizzle and the March wind.
"That's better," she said, feeling her pulse begin to slow toward normal.
"These prayer meetings can be upsetting at first, I know," Brother Robert said. "I was not sure what to make of them myself when I first came here. But they prove that the Spirit is with us, on our side, urging us forward."
Grace didn't know about that, wasn't really sure of anything right now.
"Is that what He's doing?" she said. "Urging you?"
"Yes!" Brother Robert's eyes hardened. "This is war! Evil such as the world has never known is coming. Satan in human form, here not just to claim our lives but our very souls as well! War, Grace Nevins! And you are part of God's chosen army. The Spirit has called you! You cannot say no!"
Grace could say nothing at all at that moment. Brother Robert was frightening her.
"Look," he said in a softer tone, pointing through the door glass at the street outside. "Even now we are being watched. I have seen him here a number of times this week."
Grace looked and saw a gray-haired man of about sixty standing under a tree across the street, facing their way. As she stared at him, he turned and walked away.
2
The leafless trees offered no shelter as Mr. Veilleur walked west on Thirty-seventh Street through the rain, shaking his head, baffled at the turmoil he sensed in the world around him.
What was happening?
Not far away, to the east, he sensed a kernel of chaos, throbbing like an open, infected wound. All these years of peace, and now this. How? Why? What had triggered it?
Questions with no answers. At least none that he wanted to hear. For the news could only be bad. Worse than bad.
And yet here on East Thirty-seventh he detected a warm glow. He had sensed it faintly before, but today it had been unusually strong, calling to him in a familiar voice, drawing him here.
Something was going on in that brownstone, something playing counterpoint to the festering discord to the east. Those inside were receiving a warning. They were interpreting it in their own fashion, dressing it up in their personal myths, but at least they were responding.
That gave him some hope, but not much. The battle lines were being drawn again. For what? A skirmish, or an all-out assault? Hopefully a standard-bearer would emerge from the group clustered in the brownstone.
Not that it mattered much to him. He had served his time. Someone else could shoulder the burden this go-around. He was out of it. Out of it for good.
He stopped when he reached Lexington and raised his hand, searching for a taxi—a usually futile quest on a rainy day. But just then a battered yellow cab pulled up to the curb in front of him and discharged two elderly women. Mr. Veilleur held the door for them.
"Where y'goin', mac?" the cabbie said.
"Central Park West."
"Hopinski."
As he slipped into the backseat Mr. Veilleur mused that if he believed in omens, he would take this near miracle as a good one.
But he had long ago stopped believing in either.
3
"I know what this is about," said Catherine, the older, heavier sister. "And we can't take him in with us. At least I can't."
Carol sat before Mr. Dodd's two daughters in her office at Monroe Community Hospital. It had taken her a week and a half to get both of them together in one place. This was the only day they could all do it. Kay Allen, her supervisor, would send her for psychiatric evaluation if she found out she was in on a Sunday.
"Neither can I," said Maureen.