The Power(26)

Eve swears those girls to secrecy about what they have seen; nonetheless, the girls cannot but pass it on. Savannah tells Kayla, and Kayla tells Megan, and Megan tells Danielle that Eve has been speaking with the Creator of all things, that she has secret messages.

They come to ask for her teachings.

They say, ‘Why do you call God “She”?’

Eve says, ‘God is neither woman nor man but both these things. But now She has come to show us a new side to Her face, one we have ignored for too long.’

They say, ‘But what about Jesus?’

Eve says, ‘Jesus is the son. But the son comes from the mother. Consider this: which is greater, God or the world?’

They say, for they have learned this already from the nuns, ‘God is greater, because God created the world.’

Eve says, ‘So the one who creates is greater than the thing created?’

They say, ‘It must be so.’

Then Eve says, ‘So which must be greater, the Mother or the Son?’

They pause, because they think her words may be blasphemy.

Eve says, ‘It has already been hinted in Scripture. It has already been told to us that God came to the world in a human body. We have already learned to call God “Father”. Jesus taught that.’

They admit that this is so.

Eve says, ‘So I teach a new thing. This power has been given to us to lay straight our crooked thinking. It is the Mother not the Son who is the emissary of Heaven. We are to call God “Mother”. God the Mother came to earth in the body of Mary, who gave up her child that we could live free from sin. God always said She would return to earth. And She has come back now to instruct us in her ways.’

They say, ‘Who are you?’

And Eve says, ‘Who do you say that I am?’

Allie says in her heart: How am I doing?

The voice says: You’re doing just fine.

Allie says: Is this your will?

The voice says: Do you think a single thing could happen without the will of God?

There’s going to be more than this, sweetheart, believe me.

In those days there was a great fever in the land, and a thirst for truth and a hunger to understand what the Almighty meant by making this change in the fortunes of mankind. In those days, in the South, there were many preachers who explained it: this is a punishment for sin, this is Satan walking amongst us, this is the sign of the end of days. But all these were not the true religion. For the true religion is love, not fear. The strong mother cradling her child: that is love and that is truth. The girls pass this news from one, to the next, to the next. God has returned, and Her message is for us, only us.

In the early morning of a day a few weeks later, there are more baptisms. It is the spring, near to Easter, the festival of eggs and fertility and the opening of the womb. Mary’s festival. When they come from the water, they do not care to hide what has happened to them, nor could they if they tried. By breakfast, all the girls know, and all of the nuns.

Eve sits under a tree in the garden and the other girls come to talk to her.

They say, ‘What shall we call you?’

And Eve says, ‘I am only the messenger of the Mother.’

They say, ‘But is the Mother in you?’

And Eve says, ‘She is in all of us.’

But even still the girls begin to call her Mother Eve.

That night there is a great debate between the nuns of the Sisters of Mercy. Sister Maria Ignacia – who, the others note, is a particular friend of that girl Eve – speaks in favour of the new organization of beliefs. It is just the same as it’s always been, she says. The Mother and the Son, it’s just the same. Mary is the Mother of the Church. Mary is the Queen of Heaven. It is she who prays for us now, and at the hour of our death. Some of these girls had never been baptized. They have taken it into their heads to baptize themselves. Can this be wrong?

Sister Katherine speaks of the Marian heresies, and the need to wait for guidance.

Sister Veronica hauls herself to her feet and stands, straight as the true cross, in the centre of the room. ‘The Devil is in this house,’ she says. ‘We have allowed the Devil to take root in our breasts and make his nest in our hearts. If we do not cut the canker out now, we shall all be damned.’

She says it again, more loudly, casting her glance from woman to woman in the room: ‘Damned. If we do not burn them as they burned these girls in Decatur and in Shreveport, the Devil will take us all. It shall be utterly consumed.’ She pauses. She is a powerful speaker. She says, ‘I shall pray on it this night, I shall pray for you all. We will lock the girls in their rooms until dawn. We should burn them all.’

The girl who has been listening at the window brings this message to Mother Eve.

And they wait to hear what she will say.

The voice says: You’ve got them now, girl.

Mother Eve says: Let them lock us in. The Almighty will work Her wonders.

The voice says: Doesn’t Sister Veronica realize that any of you could just open the window and climb down the drainpipe?

And Allie says in her heart: It is the will of the Almighty that she has not realized it.

The next morning, Sister Veronica is still at prayer in the chapel. At six, when the other sisters file in for Vigils, she is there, prostrate before the cross, her arms outstretched, her forehead touching the cool stone tile. It is only when they lean forward to touch her arm gently that the women see that the blood has settled in her face. She has been dead for many hours. A heart attack. The kind of thing that could happen at any moment to a woman of her age. And, as the sun rises, they look towards the figure on the cross. And they see that, engraved now into his flesh, traced with scored lines as if carved with a knife, are the fern-like markings of the power. And they know that Sister Veronica was taken in the moment that she witnessed this miracle and so had repented of all her sin.