She didn’t dare go to the hospital. She could just imagine! So she called her doctor’s office, then called the nurse-midwife with whom she had also consulted. “I’ll be right over,” Anna said. It was 10 PM by now. Why do babies love to get themselves born at night? Marie mused between contractions.

But in fact, Josh had no intention of getting himself born that night. He took his sweet time, while Marie gripped the mattress every time a contraction seized her. She broke a nail in the process. Her sweat soaked the sheet.  She forgot all the breathing techniques she’d learned in Lamaze, and for a time she even forgot about the plague of clergy, writers, and faithful-at-large that had been visited on her.

The doctor checked by phone several times, consulting with Anna on the progress of Marie’s dilation . But Anna assured the doctor that it seemed like it was going to be a routine, uncomplicated birth, albeit a slow one. It seemed as if Josh was in no hurry to face the throngs. He had it cozy in his built-in seclusion. Why rush to leave? It might be the last privacy he’d have for a long time.

By sunrise, the pains were coming one on top of another. “Are you sure you don’t want to call your mother? A friend?” Anna suggested for the tenth time, but Marie resisted. She did not want Elinor there—that would offer her no comfort. And while Sheila might be a comfort, Marie didn’t want to drag her away from her own family. Marie would get through this on her own; she’d better get used to doing just that as she marched through life, and here was as good a place as any to start. If she could get through this by herself, she could manage anything.

By nine AM, Josh had gotten himself born. “Starting your first day at nine like you’re on a time clock,” Marie cooed to the baby as she cradled him in her arms. He wasn’t much to look at, all mottled red and scrunchfaced, though he did have plenty of hair on him.

No halo, no horns, Marie thought wryly. He certainly gave every appearance of being a normal baby boy. Maybe now they’d believe her? Maybe once they had reported the birth, they’d leave her alone?

An enterprising writer from the Courier, stopping by to see if there was any news, recognized the midwife’s car and knew this might be Big News brewing. She staked out the front stoop, waiting for a scoop. When the sound of a newborn’s cry filtered out the open windows, the Courier had its lead story for the next day’s edition.

Sally from Channel 11 got word of the event and came rushing over, brazenly ringing the doorbell. Anna answered. “No comment,” she said. She knew why she was here delivering the baby instead of Marie having gone to the hospital. It was to avoid a media circus. Well, all three rings were about to fill up, but at least she had been able to deliver the baby in relative calm.

That calm was broken by the advent of a thunderstorm. Typical of south Florida weather, it blew up without warning and passed just as quickly. Twenty minutes later, the sun was again shining. But Connor, who had arrived at the house on getting word that the baby was coming, proclaimed it a sign: The Devil has arrived on Earth. The Antichrist has been born.

Marie called everyone after the fact. Even Cole. He had the right to know his son had been born. “Are you sure it’s my son? Not God’s or the Devil’s?” he asked. He’d been awfully snide the last couple of days.

“Would you like to come over and see him?” Marie offered.

“Yeh—sure,” Cole answered.

Elinor chided Marie, “Why didn’t you call me? I would’ve come over and held your hand or mopped your forehead or coached your breathing . . . whatever.” But inwardly she was glad to have escaped that ordeal.

Sheila was congratulatory and wanted to know when she could come over and see the baby.

“Anytime!” Marie answered. What a silly question—since when did her best friend need an invitation?!

Cole got there first. He’d had a client sitting with him when Marie called, but as soon as the client left, he rushed right over. Josh looked at him and started crying. “You’ve been talking to him. You’ve prejudiced him against me,” Cole teased. Then Josh grabbed hold of Cole’s finger, and Cole was entranced. “May I hold him?”

“You’re still his father.”

Father picked up son and held him. This tiny thing was a little person—incredible! A special little person—not by reason of any association with extra-worldly beings, but by virtue of being the fruit of his seed, a new life formed from his own life offering, the next generation of Erligs to carry on the family name . . . even if Cole himself was no longer a part of Marie’s family.

Josh fell asleep in Cole’s arms, and Cole was reluctant to put him down. “I guess I’d better let you rest—both of you,” he sighed, softly putting the baby down in his crib, which had been temporarily moved to Marie’s bedroom. “Well, if there’s anything I can do for you . . . ?” he asked hopefully.

“I’ll let you know,” Marie said.

Anna showed Cole to the door. There were seven reporters and three camerapeople out there now. They clamored for news, pressed forward, thrust microphones at him. Cole looked at the assembled throng of newsgatherers and knew that he, Cole Erlig, had the information they all were waiting for. Then Cole flashed on a picture of the baby boy—his newborn son—sweet-smelling and tender, pink and fragile, gentle and trusting, lying in the crib inside. “No comment,” he said.

Why couldn’t this Marie woman be a member of their church? It would have been so much better for the Life Force Spiritual Path if Marie had been a member, Adam thought. After all, LFSP believed in the Second Coming, believed Marie was probably bearing the next incarnation of the messiah. And if the public were more aware of LFSP, more people would surely join. If Marie were an LFSP member, some of the publicity she was getting would slop over onto the church.

Maybe, Adam thought, he needed to make some overtures to her. Adam knew Marie wasn’t religious; her views had been publicized enough that a person would have to live in Outer Mongolia not to know quite a bit about Marie Erlig. She’d been in the paper, in magazines, on the radio, and on TV. She’d been featured in local media, media from nearby areas of Florida, and increasingly in national media as well. True, she hadn’t been on Oprah yet, but Adam supposed that was merely a matter of time. And the church was missing out on collecting fringe benefits from her fame. Thinking about it, Adam sighed loudly. If he couldn’t get Marie to join LFSP, maybe he could at least forge some sort of alliance.

Yes—that was the ticket. An alliance, a beneficial alliance. LFSP would take some sort of a stand in Marie’s favor, thus helping her while bringing their church to prominence at the same time. Now, what did Marie most need?

Of course the media had been having a field day—the reportage had run the gamut of viewpoints. Most of the stories had been pretty straight-ahead, reporting exactly what had happened, giving opinions both in support of and against believing that Marie was pregnant with someone or something out of the ordinary, quoting Marie, her neighbors, church leaders, and others. Adam had been quoted a few times, but most of the reporters preferred to seek their quotes from the leaders of mainstream churches. (Reverend Argyle had certainly gotten his name in the papers enough lately, Adam had noticed. Argyle seemed to be taking full advantage of Marie’s situation—and she wasn’t a member of his church, either.)

Some of the writers, less objective, had fawned over Marie and the impending birth. Still others, also lacking objectivity, had gone to the other extreme. They’d debunked the whole thing so vigorously that they completely ignored any facts that supported belief. One writer had even suggested Marie wasn’t pregnant at all. Was it an “honest” hysterical pregnancy, he wondered in print, imagined but truly believed in by Marie, or was she perpetrating a gigantic and cruel hoax on the miracle-hungry faithful?

Adam decided the best place to start was to go to Marie’s house and see how his church could help her. So one Tuesday at 5:30, Adam rang Marie’s doorbell. He had already been to the Courier’s offices, declaiming to a reporter that LFSP stood foursquare on the side of the believers, that this was indeed a miraculous pregnancy. “And I’m meeting with Marie this afternoon for a coordinating session. I want to see what kind of practical help the Life Force Spritual Path can best provide for her, what we can do that will be most useful,” he added, making it sound like the meeting was already set up.

But when he rang her bell at 5:30 and posed his question, he was dismayed at her answer: “The best thing you can do for me is leave me alone. If you could figure out a way to keep everyone away, that would be even better, but you’d have to work a few real miracles to accomplish that.”

Chagrined, Adam agreed, but he persisted in asking what he could do to be of more concrete service. “Just go home, so I can start dinner. I just got home from work. I’m tired. It’s getting late. My husband’s in the shower. When he gets out and doesn’t smell dinner cooking, he’s not going to be a happy camper.”

Husband? If Marie wasn’t being helpful, maybe her husband would be.

“Maybe I’ll wait a couple of minutes, if I may, so I can talk to your husband when he’s out of the shower. You go ahead and cook and ignore me.”

“I wish you wouldn’t wait. You asked what you could do for me. I told you—leave me alone. Now do it!”

“Maybe we can help organize a drive to collect baby clothes for you,” Adam offered, backing slowly toward the door.

“We don’t need charity. And I’ve got most of the clothes already. They’re all put away in the baby’s room. Mostly yellow outfits that will suit either a boy or a girl.”

“Then you don’t know yet if it’s a boy or a girl?”

“If I did, you would know too. Nothing happens about the baby that doesn’t get reported in newspapers coast to coast and CNN’s headlines. If I sneeze, everyone in the nation hollers ‘Gesundheit’. If I knew what sex the baby was, you would have read about it. The latest baby news is probably today’s headline banner on that building in Times Square. Now please go!”

That hadn’t gone very well, Adam thought as he left Marie’s house. But he was determined to help her anyhow. There had to be something he could do for her, something she would appreciate, something that would inextricably link LFSP with Marie, so they would get the publicity they needed . . . deserved.

“We’re organizing a prayer vigil,” he announced to local reporters at a press conference he called. “We’re praying for the safety of the baby and of Marie. In these troubled times, there are unstable elements who have to be dealt with, whom it’s necessary to be concerned about. God is good, but man can make evil beyond what God can control. Witness the wars that mankind has waged on other fellow-inhabitants of our poor suffering planet. Witness the eons of unrest in the Middle East. And now there are elements muttering about the baby being devil spawn, or the Antichrist. Not to mention all the people who simply doubt the baby’s identity as the Second Coming of the messiah.

“It is the Life Force Spiritual Path’s position that the truth will be known in time, and that in the meanwhile we need to protect Marie and her unborn child. Whoever and whatever the baby is or isn’t, he is a new life in the making, and he and his mother should be accorded the respect due any new life and the mother bearing it.

“Additionally, we feel that in all probability we will see it proven, in time to come, that this child is indeed the Second Coming. Meanwhile, we will pray for his safety, and the safety of his mother. And if she wants, we are prepared to post a guard of volunteers on twenty-four-hour alert at her home.”

She didn’t want. She didn’t want any such thing at all, of course. Yet the threat of which Adam spoke was not a figment of his hunger for publicity. Connor had been mumbling louder, of late, about the Antichrist, and deception, and the need to not fall for a false messiah.

That it was Connor only made the confrontation that much more enjoyable for Adam; after all, there had been bad blood between the two factions ever since the Church of Repentance had split off from the Life Force Spiritual Path. But even if it had been the Pope himself proclaiming the baby the Antichrist in no uncertain terms, Adam would have taken a stand in support of the baby’s being the Second Coming.

The media flocked to Adam’s press conference. His statement garnered a flurry of publicity. There hadn’t been any real news about the pregnancy lately, and at this point anything connected with Marie and the baby was worth reporting. Marie, seeing that night’s sound bites on TV and reading the accounts in the paper the next morning, sighed aloud and wondered, would they ever leave her alone?

No, they wouldn’t. She tried to go shopping for a crib, the following week. In an attempt to keep it low-key, she went alone, hoping to slip in and out unnoticed. She had as much chance of that as the chances of Secretariat entering a mule derby unnoticed. The salesclerks fawned over her, the shoppers mobbed her, and everyone seemed to want something.

Some just wanted to touch her. Some wanted to talk. Some wanted her autograph. There was an awkward moment when Marie said, “I’m just an ordinary woman. I’m no celebrity. Who do you think I am—Madonna?!” As soon as she said it, she realized any other celebrity’s name would have been a better choice.

A few of the shoppers were not among the awed. “For shame—saying you’re carrying God’s child!” one religious older woman chided her.

“But I never said any such thing!” Marie protested. “I’m not carrying God’s child. It’s my husband’s child. Colton Erlig. Very human. Very earthly. And there’s nothing special or mysterious about my baby. The only mystery is why nobody will believe that. Now will you please leave me alone?” But they wouldn’t, and she ultimately walked out without the crib, leaving it for another day.

Reverend Argyle finally came out in support of Marie. He’d dithered over his church’s appropriate posture, giving statements to reporters when asked for a quote, yet feeling he was missing a larger opportunity for publicity to accrue to his church. While he publicly decried the clergy who were getting involved for less-than-religious reasons, he privately envied the exposure they were gleaning. Surely the ranks of their membership were swelling in response to their being in the public eye.

As he lifted weights early one morning, working out and building up better muscles than are found on most forty-five-year-old clergy, he exercised his brain simultaneously. What was the best approach to take as far as Marie was concerned? He finally hit on what he thought was the best response: He would proclaim that Marie was a beleaguered woman who had made no claims, yet who might be carrying a miracle baby—or not. However, as a pregnant woman, she deserved respect and consideration.  And as a local resident, she deserved the church’s help even though she wasn’t a member.

(Too bad, Reverend Argyle thought. If she were a member, think of all the reflected glory that would fall upon the church. But, since she’s Jewish, there isn’t much chance of getting her to join. Why did God let a Jewish woman become pregnant with the Savior?!)

Yes, as a local woman, she deserved every kind of help the church could give her. Who were those upstart LFSP people anyhow, offering her help? They were taking glory away from a serious church.

What Marie really wanted, of course, was to be left alone. To be ignored, to be left in peace, to have no more press conferences, no more speculation, no more hoopla. But that was a wish that there was no chance of anyone fulfilling.

“Are we riding in together?” It wasn’t as if Cole didn’t see enough of his wife, and it wasn’t as if the drive to work was so long that taking two cars was a serious expenditure of gas. Yet any day that Marie took her own car to work was a Major Disappointment in Colton Erlig’s life. So it was a splash of icy water to him when Marie answered, “No, we need a few things. I think I’ll run over to the supermarket first and go in a little late.”

“Maybe I’ll hang back and go in with you—no, wait—I have a client coming in at 9:30. Unless you think you’ll be finished shopping in time—”

“Better not count on it. Besides, I don’t want to be under that kind of pressure. Go on ahead. I’ll see you at the office in a little while.”

“You could do your shopping after work,” Cole wheedled.

“You know how crowded it is then. I’d rather go now when it’s less busy. I get in and out faster. I have better things to do with my time than stand in a checkout line for twenty minutes.”

The length of the checkout line proved to be the least of Marie’s problems. She cringed when she got to the produce section, seeing the eggplants and remembering the genesis of all her problems, but things remained peaceful till she got to the checkout. That was where the first person recognized her from the news. “Excuse me—aren’t you the lady who . . . who’s carrying the . . . the lady who’s pregnant with . . . it’s you, isn’t it?” This from a middle-aged woman with sad eyes and stringy hair, standing in the line for the next register.

Marie said simply, “I’m pregnant. But that’s all. I’m nobody special.”

“Yes, you are!” insisted a dull-eyed woman, two in front of her in her line.  “You’re the woman who’s carrying the Baby Jesus.”

“I am not!” Marie protested at that.

“It’s not exactly Jesus—it’s the next messiah,” another woman joined in.

“No—this time we’re due for the Antichrist. It’s in the Bible,” an older man piped up.

“I’m just carrying a baby, for pity’s sake! An ordinary baby!”

“No, it’s not an ordinary baby. I saw the newscast. You’re famous!” This from the dull-eyed woman.

Marie looked around, poised to take flight. She was tempted to leave her basket and just flee the store. But could she make Cole do all the shopping for the next nine months? That was what it would take, if she were going to avoid this sort of scene. And even if she kept out of the supermarket for the duration, what would stop people from accosting her at the bank, the hairdresser’s, the gas station, the Post Office . . . .

“Bless me. Heal my arthritis,” an older woman with crippled fingers begged, touching her ten stiff, arthritic fingers to Marie’s belly.

“That’s it!” Marie exploded, yanking her cart backward to escape the line. But another cart was behind her, and another behind that one, and another behind that. As she jerked backward, she ran into the cart behind her, smacking her tush on the cart’s corner. She swore under her breath, wanting to rub her sore cheek yet hardly willing to do so in public. Looking behind her, she saw the line of carts blocking her escape and felt momentarily like a fox trapped in its den. There was nothing to do but cower and let the hunters get her.

At least, now she was next after the woman ahead of her. Gratefully she began unloading her cart. Angela, the cashier at the checkout, saw her and acknowledged her. “Hi, Marie. How are you?”

“Frazzled. Hassled,” Marie said with a grimace.

“Yeah, I saw the news reports. Whoever thought Flamingo Cove would have someone famous living here?”

“Whoever thought it would be me?” Marie echoed.

“The cashier called you Marie?” This from a girl who looked to still be in her teens, although she was holding a baby of her own.

Marie tilted her head by way of acknowledgment without answering the question aloud.

“That’s cool. You’ve got a name that’s a variation on Mary—and you’re carrying the Second Coming!”

“I’m not! I’m just carrying an ordinary baby. Look, I don’t want to be impolite or nasty or anything, but I wish everyone would just leave me alone!”

Ignoring her request, the onlookers clamored their feelings about her pregnancy and her name.

“Are you Catholic?” the teenager asked. Marie shook her head. “What are you, then?” Marie gave an exasperated look. “What church do you belong to?” Marie tried to ignore her, but it seemed there were quite a few people waiting to hear the answer.

“I don’t belong to any church,” she finally said.

“What church were you raised in?”

“I was raised Jewish.”

“Jewish—you can’t be carrying the messiah!” Marie could feel the resentment boiling outward from the woman who said that. It came surging out of her almost palpably, a tide of hard feelings at the usurper who was encroaching on Christian territory.

Marie remembered the interview with Van Jordan that had touched on that subject. She hoped no one else had seen it. Maybe this crowd would decide that, indeed, this was just a normal pregnancy and turn their attention elsewhere.

But one woman either had seen the interview or harbored similar opinions on her own. “The original Mother of God was Jewish too,” she declared loudly. And Marie was once again the center of attention, though at least she could feel the resentment of a moment ago evaporating. The fickle crowd turned once again adoring, gazing at Marie as if she were a treasure in their midst.

She got out of the supermarket finally, hurrying home with her groceries and putting them away, but before she could get out the door again, the phone rang. It was a reporter looking for a telephone interview. “I’m sorry. No interviews,” the beleaguered Marie pleaded.

“Just a few questions?”

“No! I’m sorry, but I have to get to work.”

“I’ll call later.”

Things weren’t much better at work. All through the day, people came in to see the woman who was supposedly pregnant with the Second Coming. Some of them stayed to make photocopies, to arrange for Amy to do some bookkeeping for them, to ask if there was any empty office space they could rent, to avail themselves of secretarial or other services that Office Central offered. More than a couple even drifted into Cole’s office and made appointments to return at a later date. He seemed amazed at this turn of events. But, even with this influx of business, Marie was not pleased with the way the day was going.

The days that followed brought more of the same. Business had never been better, yet Marie had never been less happy. “It’ll blow over,” Joanna consoled her. “We’ll lose this extra business we’re doing, but you’ll lose the invasion of your privacy. Something else will catch their fancy. There’ll be a new headline in the news, a new oddity to snag their attention, nothing interesting will happen over here, and gradually they’ll all stop coming around. You’ll see.”

Marie wanted to believe her, but as the days rolled on, it became clear that, as good an office assistant as Joanna was, she was no prophet. If anything, the steady stream of gawkers and questioners, reporters and just-plain-people, the curious and the worshipful and even a few of the resentful became larger, not smaller.

The weekends were no better; the faithful and the curious merely flocked to the house instead. The local reporters were slacking off, it was true; with nothing new to report, they were turning their attention to other stories. But for every local reporter from the daily paper, weekly papers, TV, and radio who stopped ringing the doorbell, it seemed there were two new ones from media farther away. Neighboring towns, then neighboring states, and finally national media were sending reporters to interview Marie. There were reporters from newspapers, from magazines, from networks. There were freelance writers. There was even a stringer from an Aussie newspaper!

One Monday morning, Marie, now two months pregnant, was walking out the door with Cole and found three reporters on her doorstep. “You’d better go in without me again,” she told her husband. “I’ll be along as soon as I can.”

Never happy to ride to work without his wife, Cole grumbled, then snapped at Marie. “I have no normal life anymore. I want you to stop this now!”

“How?!” Marie exploded. “How do I stop it? Have I sent out gilt-edged invitations to all these people? Did I rent a blimp to trail a streamer that says COME TO MARIE’S HOUSE FOR A JUICY INTERVIEW? Do you think I’m enjoying all these intrusions? Don’t you think I want a normal life too?” She burst into tears on her front stoop, while the reporters hastily scribbled notes. Marie ached for a comforting touch, and she looked at Cole beseechingly, but Cole only threw her a disgusted look and stormed off to his car.

“What’s your reaction to your wife’s unusual pregnancy?” one reporter asked him, cornering him at the door to his car.

“Go to fuckin’ hell!” Cole replied succinctly. Then he yanked at the door, deliberately slamming it into the reporter as it opened, and got into the car, angrily yanking the door shut again. He turned the key, levered into Drive, and gunned the gas with a defiant vrooooom. Cole was squealing out of the driveway, laying down rubber, before the reporter could assess his bruises.

Marie, still sobbing on the stoop, turned and hurried into the house, but one of the reporters followed her in. “Excuse me, but I’d really like to ask a few questions,” the young redhead said, almost apologetically, as more reporters eagerly trooped in behind her. “What are your own religious beliefs?”

Marie snuffled into a tissue, wiped her mascara-streaked wet cheeks, and sat down helplessly on the sofa. Defeated, she answered the questions one by one. Her religious upbringing. Her personal beliefs. Her feelings about the baby she was carrying.

That one , at least, brought the spark back to her voice. “It’s a baby. It’s an ordinary, normal baby. Nothing mystic. Nothing mysterious. Nothing religious, spiritual, special, or . . . jeez, it’s a normal kid, if you’ll just let me have a normal pregnancy. Why won’t anyone accept that? Look, if—just say if, for the moment—God were really going to send us a Savior—Second Coming, first time around, whatever—don’t you think He’d have the mother be someone special? I mean, sheesh, I’m an ordinary woman, not your biggest sinner—I’m no Mary Magdalene—but I’m damn well no saint. I’m an ordinary person, no better or worse a person than the next, and I’m certainly nobody God would pick to bear His son. Doesn’t that say something to you?”

But it merely raised a fresh round of questions: What was the worst thing Marie had ever done in her life? Which of the Commandments had she ever broken? Did she consider herself a sinner? Why didn’t she belong to a temple? What did she have against organized religion? Did she think it was a sin that she wasn’t affiliated? Was it true that her husband was Christian? What religion were they going to raise the baby in? What special religious instruction would they offer the baby? How and when would they tell him (or her) of the special circumstances surrounding his (or her) birth? Did Marie think a girl could be the Savior? Did she have any feeling, any intuition, about the sex of the child she was carrying? Did she have a preference for having a boy or a girl? Did her husband? Did they have a name picked out? They would choose a Biblical name, wouldn’t they? Were they planning to name the baby Jesus?

By now it was nearly ten o’clock. “I have to get to work, folks,” Marie insisted desperately. But that only raised a fresh round of questions: Tell us about the people at work. Do they all believe you’re carrying a miracle baby? Do you plan to continue working after the baby is born? Why do you think you were chosen?

There were six reporters in her living room. Marie finally stood up, faced them all down, and said, “I am leaving. I am going to work. And I am not leaving any of you here when I go. So I want you all to leave. Now! I’m not answering any more questions today, and that’s that.” Then, when no one made a move to leave, she said, “If I have to, so help me I’ll take a broom to anyone who isn’t out of here in five seconds.”

They scattered when Marie got up and moved toward the kitchen. After that, though, she didn’t much feel like going to work.

Pastor Hemmings infinitely preferred coffee to tea, but he wasn’t going to be impolite or ungracious.  As he sipped the lapsang souchong that Reverend Argyle had given him, though, he was grateful for the lemon. It added bite to the smoky, warm liquid. Pastor Hemmings preferred a more robust drink—strong coffee, unalloyed by milk or sugar.

At the last meeting of the countywide Interfaith Council, Rabbi Birnbaum had brought up a matter that had led to a spirited debate between Reverend Argyle and Pastor Hemmings. Argyle had invited Hemmings for a further discussion over a cup of tea this afternoon. So here they were . . . and there they still were when there was something of a commotion out in the hallway.

The two men rose and went out to see what was up. Two kids—a brother and sister from the look of it—were loudly arguing. The girl was smaller and presumably younger, but she was standing her ground: “Did too see her! Where’s the minister?” the girl insisted.

“I know, but—you don’t want to go telling people things like that!” the boy protested.

“You saw her too!” the girl insisted in clarion tones.

“You want people to think you’re crazy?”

“Don’t care. It was her! I saw her!”

“Who did you see?” Reverend Argyle asked. He put a hand on the young girl’s shoulder and looked at her with mildly curious eyes. Pastor Hemmings felt more caught up in the drama, but this was his colleague’s church, so he took a back seat and let the other man take charge.

“The Virgin. Mary. Jesus’s mother. I saw her.”

Reverend Argyle permitted himself a small smile of amusement. “Somehow it doesn’t sound like you’re talking about our stained glass window. Did you see an actual woman who looks like Mary?” He patted the girl on the head tolerantly.

“No! It was her! I saw her!” The young girl’s voice rose with her insistence on what she had seen. “She was standing in the empty field. And then she disappeared.”

“She walked away?”

“No. She didn’t go anywhere. She just went. She just, you know, went away. Disappeared.”

“How do you know it was Mary?” Pastor Hemmings finally spoke up.

“She looked like her. Her face. Her clothes. It was her!”

“Couldn’t it have been someone dressed for a pageant?” Pastor Hemmings suggested to Reverend Argyle.

“I don’t know of any churches having pageants today.”

“Well, maybe not a church. Is there a medieval play being put on in one of the schools today? Is there a Renaissance fair going on somewhere? Anything where people might be dressed in flowing costumes?”

“It was the Virgin Mother. I know!” the girl shrieked insistently.

“I told you they’d all think you’re nuts,” her brother chimed in.

“I don’t think you’re crazy,” Reverend Argyle said, stroking her shoulder comfortingly. “I’ve known you since you were born. You’re not crazy. But I do think you’ve made an honest mistake.”

“Is there a problem?” It was Edna Waltham, the choir leader, who had come in in advance of choir practice and had heard the young girl’s shrieks.

“Jessica here saw someone that to her eyes resembled the Virgin Mother,” Reverend Argyle explained.

“No, it was her!” Jessica insisted.

“Tell me about it,” Edna said, crouching down as best her aging knees would let her. Jessica repeated her story, embellishing it with every detail she could remember.

When she’d finished, Reverend Argyle gave a short laugh at the girl’s vivid imagination, but Edna creaked to an upright position and faced the minister squarely. “Who are you to scoff at the possibility of miracles?!” she demanded nose-to-nose. “Maybe she saw exactly what she says she did!”

“That’d put Flamingo Cove on the map,” Pastor Hemmings chuckled. “Look at that apparition on that building’s window a few years ago.  Headline news from coast to coast. And then there was that so-called nunbun.”

“Sure, our town would be famous—for a week. And then we’d be old news again,” Edna said dismissively. “But maybe we ought to pay attention.  Suppose just for the moment that these kids saw exactly what Jessica says she saw. Why is the Virgin appearing? And why here in Flamingo Cove?”

“Maybe it’s all those fringe groups. Maybe she’s unhappy with them,” Reverend Argyle ventured.

“She didn’t look unhappy. She was smiling,” Jessica offered timidly.

“Did she say anything to you?” Edna asked.

“Not exactly.”

“What does that mean? Did she speak or not?” Reverend Argyle sounded cross now.

“Her mouth didn’t move. But I heard her in my head.” Now Jessica sounded hesitant to speak, as if even she believed now that she would be thought crazy.

“What did she say?” Pastor Hemmings asked. He still didn’t really take this account with too much credibility, but nevertheless . . . .

“She said two things. She said ‘Peace.’ And she said, ‘He is coming.’”

“Who is coming?” Edna asked.

Jessica looked at her with clear and earnest eyes. “She didn’t say.”

“Who do you think she meant?” Reverend Argyle asked.

“I have no idea, Reverend. But she looked so happy when she said it.”

• • •

“This’ll cause a stir,” Pastor Hemmings observed when the kids had left.

“Maybe she won’t say anything to anyone,” Reverend Argyle said, not sounding as if he believed it.

“Not a chance!” Edna opined. “She’s way too caught up in . . . in whatever it was that she saw.”

“Do you suppose . . . ?” That was Pastor Hemmings, but before anyone else could answer him, he answered himself with a dismissive laugh and a shake of his head. “Not likely, now is it?” he said.

“Who said all the miracles belonged in the olden days?” Edna snorted. “If anyone ought to believe in miracles, you ministers ought to!”

“Not everyone who claims a miracle really witnessed one,” Reverend Argyle offered.

“All the same, I’d be prepared for a flurry of attention from the press,” Pastor Hemmings put in.

Reverend Argyle cocked his head and lifted an eyebrow. Edna could tell he was seeing this whole incident in a new light.

“It’ll get attention for the church,” the minister finally concluded. “And that’s not altogether a bad thing.” Sunday attendance had been down, and membership was sagging.

“You’ll be temporarily famous,” Pastor Hemmings teased. “Everyone gets his fifteen minutes—isn’t that what they say? I think you’re about to get yours.”

Reverend Argyle didn’t look entirely displeased by that prospect. Thinking, I’m overdue for a haircut anyhow, he consulted his watch, then said to his colleague, “Well, there’s nothing to do but wait and see what happens.” His tone of voice said, “Let’s wrap this up,” and Pastor Hemmings took the hint, wishing a good day to Edna and Argyle, then leaving as quickly as his portly girth would permit.

Edna hurried off to the meeting room where the choir would rehearse, and Reverend Argyle left too, headed for the barber’s, wondering how to turn around the probable publicity to the church’s best advantage. Maybe it had been an apparition of the Blessed Virgin; maybe it hadn’t. Either way, though, maybe God had sent the church some help for its sagging membership, if only in the person of a small child who thought she had seen Jesus’s mother.