"I still don't know what got into me," she said. "But I swear it will never happen again. You've got to forgive me."
"I do," he said, and there was nothing forced about his smile this time. "I could forgive you just about anything."
Amid the glow of relief she experienced an intense flash of resentment at his generosity of spirit. It was gone as soon as it came, but it definitely had been there. She wondered about it.
"Listen," he said, hopping out and running around to help her to her feet on her side of the car. "I told my mother you'd be out here by yourself. She's going to check in. And if I know her, she'll be dropping off a pot of stew or a casserole too."
"She doesn't have to."
"She's dying to. She can't get used to an empty nest. She's hunting someone to mother."
Carol remembered the warm, rotund Mrs. Ryan from the days when she had dated Bill in high school. She knew Bill had been staying at his folks' house since Friday and wondered how his parents were doing.
"I'll be fine," she said. "Really I will."
Emma was waiting inside. She ushered Carol to the big wing chair in the library, supporting her arm as if she were an elderly, infirm aunt.
"There!" she said. "You just rest easy in that chair and I'll get you some lunch."
"That's really okay, Emma. I can—"
"Nonsense. I made some tuna salad, the kind with the sliced gherkins, just the way you like it."
Carol sighed to herself and smiled. Emma was trying so hard to make her comfortable and look after her. How could she throw it back in her face?
"Where's Jonah?"
"He's home, calling his foreman. He's got some vacation time coming—lots of it—and he's going to take a few weeks to stay close by and help you get this place in shape."
Just what I need, she thought. The two of them around at once.
But again she was touched by the concern. In all the time she had known him, Jim's father—adoptive father—had been as remote as the moon. Since the funeral, however, his demeanor had changed radically. He was concerned, solicitous, even devoted.
And in all those years she could not remember him ever taking a vacation. Not once.
All this attention was getting to be too much for her.
"Want to stay for lunch, Bill?"
"No thanks. I really—"
"You've got to eat sometime. And I could use the company."
"All right," he said. "But just for a quick sandwich, and then I've got to be getting back to St. Francis."
The sun was so bright and the day so warm that Carol thought it might be nice to eat outside in the gazebo overlooking the Long Island Sound. Emma declined to join them. Bill was already out in the yard dusting off the seats when the phone rang.
"I'll get it!" Carol said, wondering who could be calling her here on a Sunday afternoon. She lifted the receiver.
"Hello?"
"Carol Stevens?" said a muffled voice.
"Yes? Who's this?"
"That is not important. What is important is that you be aware that the child you are carrying is the Antichrist himself."
"What?" Fear gripped her insides and twisted. "Who is this?"
"Satan has transferred himself from the soulless shell of your husband to your womb. You must put Satan out!"
"You're crazy!"
"Will you put Satan out? Will you rip the beast from your womb and cast him back into Hell where he belongs?"
"No! Never! And don't ever call here again!"
Her skin crawling, she slammed the heavy receiver down and hurried outside, away from the phone before it could ring again.
3
Grace unwound the handkerchief from around the mouthpiece of the receiver and stuffed it into her pocket.
That settles that.
She had hated speaking to Carol like that, but she had to know if the poor girl could be frightened into resolving the problem on her own. Obviously she could not. So now Grace's course was set.
She walked back to the front of her apartment where thirteen people waited in her cramped living room. There was Brother Robert, Martin, and the ten members of the Chosen who had been miraculously marked by the Spirit in Martin's apartment last night. They were dressed in sweaters and jackets and slacks and jeans—and all had bandages on their hands. Like Grace's, their wounds had stopped bleeding within an hour of the miracle.
Grace wondered if they had spent the entire night awake like her, staring at her palms, her feet, inspecting the stab wound under her left breast, assuring and reassuring herself that the wounds were real, that she truly had been touched by God.
Mr. Veilleur was there too. He alone had unbandaged hands. They were all waiting, all staring at her with expectant looks in their eyes.
Without fanfare or ceremony, much of the burden of leadership of the Chosen had passed to her. Grace felt strong, imbued with holy purpose. She knew what the Lord wanted her to do, and as much as her heart recoiled from what was to come, she was ready to obey. The others, Brother Robert among them, were behind her. The monk had stepped aside— gladly, it seemed—to allow her to decide the next move. Grace was receiving guidance from on high. The Spirit was with her. They all knew that and yielded to it.
Only Mr. Veilleur withheld his allegiance.
"She's home," she said. "At the mansion. It's time for us to act. Our mission today is the reason we were touched by the Spirit. It is the purpose for which we were brought together. The Spirit is with us today. It has made us the instruments of God. Let us go."
They rose as one and began filing out the door.
All except Mr. Veilleur. The sight of him sitting there immobile while everyone else mustered for action triggered a flow of syllables she did not understand. She heard herself speaking in what he had called the Old Tongue.
"Not this time," he said, answering in English. "You've had enough use of me. I'm out of it now. Out of it for good."
"What did I say?" Grace asked, momentarily unsure of herself for the first time since yesterday's miracle.
"It doesn't matter," Mr. Veilleur said.
"You're not coming with us?"
"No."
"You think we're wrong?"
"What I think doesn't matter. Do what you have to do. I understand. I've been there. Besides, this 'stigmata' you've all incurred has achieved its purpose. All doubt has been cast aside. You're all inflamed with holy purpose."
"Are you saying we're wrong?"
"Absolutely not. I'm merely saying you must go without me."
"What if I don't go? What if I do nothing? What if I turn my back to the calling of the Lord and allow the—allow Carol's baby to be born? What will that child do to us, to the world, when he's born?"
"It won't be what he will do to the world so much as what the world will do to itself. He will have little effect at first, although his very presence will cause those living on the knife edge of violence and evil to fall into the abyss. But as he grows older he will steadily draw strength from the ambient evil and degradation of life around him. And the day will come—as it inevitably must—when he realizes that his power is unopposed. Once he knows that, he will let in all the lunatic darkness stalking the edges of what we call civilization."
"You said something about what the world will do to itself. Will he make us all depraved and evil?"
Mr. Veilleur shook his head. "No. That's not how the game is played."