The Challenge Box

by Isobel Bird

  “Have you ever thought that something else might be true?” asked Kate. She felt it was a rude question to ask the priest, but she couldn’t help it.

  “I’ve studied many faiths,” Father Mahoney answered. “And I’ve found beautiful things in many of them, things that I found uplifting and powerful and moving. But this is my faith. This is where I belong. No one can tell you where you belong except for you, and the only way you can decide where your place is is to decide what it is you believe in.”

  “But that’s so hard when, like you said, you can’t really prove any of it.” She sighed. “Why is it so easy for some people?” she asked. “I mean, how can so many people just believe stuff?”

  “Probably because just believing it is easier than questioning it,” said the priest. “I’ve been in this business a long time,” he continued, making Kate laugh. “I’ve seen a lot of people come and go. I think basically there are two types of people. There are those who want religion to be the one stable thing in their lives. They want to believe that there’s a set of rules that never changes, because it makes the rest of their lives easier if they can believe that. And then there are the people who question. They want answers. They want to know the whys and the hows and the whats. They find it difficult to believe something just because someone tells them it’s true.”

  “Do you think one way is better than another?” asked Kate.

  Father Mahoney gave her the cryptic smile again. “Would you buy a car if you hadn’t checked the brakes?” he asked her. “For years the mass was said in Latin. Most people couldn’t even understand it. Why? Because it was believed that people shouldn’t think too much about God and their relationship to Him for themselves. That was the job of the priests. The priests talked and people listened. But then some people started to complain about that. Why can’t we talk to God ourselves? they asked. Why can’t we have the mass in words we can understand? So things changed. And if you ask me, they changed for the better.”

  “You have to admit, though, it’s a lot easier when someone just tells you what to do and where to go,” said Kate.

  “Easier, maybe,” Father Mahoney replied. “But you don’t really learn anything that way. It’s like teaching rats to touch a particular button if they want food by shocking them when they touch the wrong one. They don’t learn anything about the force behind the shock and how it works. All they know is it hurts if they do the ‘wrong’ thing.”

  “So how do I know if I’m doing the right thing?” Kate asked him. “How do I know for sure what’s true for me?”

  “That’s a question only you can answer,” Father Mahoney replied. “If it has an answer at all.”

  Thanks a lot, Kate wanted to say. Thanks so much for not helping at all. Then a thought struck her: That’s a question only you can answer. If it has an answer at all. A question with no answer. Just like her challenge. Was it possible that Father Mahoney had just provided her with the key to figuring out her challenge?

  Kate gave a little laugh, this time out loud. What would her father think if she told him that the man he’d sent her to to change her mind had instead provided her with the information to perhaps meet the challenge that would make her a witch? It was too weird.

  “Is something funny?” Father Mahoney asked.

  “No,” Kate said. “I mean sort of. It’s not important.”

  Father Mahoney turned to one of his bookshelves and took down a book, which he handed to Kate. “This might interest you,” he said.

  Kate looked at the book. It was called The Seven Storey Mountain, written by a man named Thomas Merton.

  “Thomas Merton was a young man who was on a quest for faith,” Father Mahoney said. “His quest led him to join a Trappist monastery. I’m not suggesting that for you, but I think you might relate to his story.”

  “This isn’t some kind of trick, is it?” Kate said. “You’re not trying to get me all hyped up about becoming a nun or something, right? Because that is so not happening.”

  “No,” Father Mahoney said. “Priest’s honor.” He gave Kate an innocent look. “Would I lie?” he asked.

  Kate rolled her eyes. She was feeling more and more at ease with the priest. But he still hadn’t really answered the question she’d come to him with. Or, rather, that her father had sent her to him with.

  “You don’t think there’s anything bad about me wanting to become a witch, do you?” she said, finally getting it out.

  “You know the church’s opinion about witchcraft,” Father Mahoney said. “We haven’t exactly been accepting and embracing of it over the years.”

  “No kidding,” Kate remarked, thinking about the Inquisition and the hundreds of thousands of people tortured and killed for supposedly being witches.

  “I think God comes in many forms,” Father Mahoney said carefully. “And I don’t think we all find God in the same form. Do you remember the part of the catechism where we ask ‘Why did God make me?’”

  Kate nodded. They had learned the answer in CCD class. After being reminded of the answer over and over by Sister Agatha, Kate had been able to reply to the question on cue. She did so now. “God made me to know him, to love him, and to serve him in this world and to be happy with him forever in the next,” she said without thinking.

  Father Mahoney smiled. “Thank you, Sister Agatha,” he said, laughing. “Yes, that’s the traditional answer. And I think it’s a good one. I don’t think there’s anything greater we can do than to know God as deeply as possible and have our lives be a reflection of that knowing. I like to think I’m sure about being happy with Him forever in the next world as well, but I don’t think I’ll really find out until I’m there, which hopefully won’t be for a while yet.”

  Kate wanted him to go further, to put everything that he’d said together and say that the Goddess was just another form of God and that it was okay with him if she wanted to dedicate her life to finding out everything she could about the Goddess. But he didn’t. Instead he said, “Kate, I want for you what I want for all my parishioners, and really for everyone in the world. I want you to ask questions. I want you to struggle with the answers. And I want you to come away from that struggle a stronger person whose life has been changed by the experience. I’m not going to tell you where to look for answers or what questions to ask. You have to do that. But I will tell you that you will always be welcome here, and my door will always be open to you if you want to talk.”

  Kate smiled. “Thanks,” she said. She still didn’t have the answer to her big question, which was whether or not becoming a witch was really the way to go for her. But it was a step in the right direction.

  She stood up to go. Father Mahoney stood as well, walking Kate to the door. There he paused. “Tell your parents I said hello,” he said. “And tell your father if he has anything he wants to talk to me about, he can come see me.”

  Kate knew what the priest was getting at. Her dad was going to be unhappy that Father Mahoney hadn’t given her a lecture and convinced her to give up any thoughts of initiation. He’d probably want an explanation.

  “I’ll tell him,” she said. “But you might want to think about sending him to talk to Sister Agatha instead. She’d be able to handle him.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Cooper stood at the side of the stage, looking out at the actors and wondering what in the world she was doing. I can’t believe I let Andre talk me into this, she thought, not for the first time in the past twelve hours. She looked down at her costume. Juliet and Darcy had done their best to alter it, but it was still a little big, and Cooper worried that she might trip over the hem of the dress. She hadn’t been in a dress in a long time as it was. Adding the pressure of having to walk, speak, and act to the situation made it even more stressful.

  It had all started that morning, when Cooper had entered the kitchen, badly needing some coffee after her late night the evening before. After the parade, when she’d finally found Annie (who was being very mysterious about wher
e she’d run off to), Cooper had enjoyed several hours of partying with Juliet, Andre, and some other members of the theater group. They had danced, eaten, and talked until well after midnight, caught up in the Mardi Gras fever. Cooper had eventually fallen asleep on the couch, and had woken up with a sore neck and a wicked headache.

  Things hadn’t improved when she’d stumbled into the kitchen and found an equally tired-looking Andre and Juliet discussing how they were going to handle a tiny crisis that had arisen. It seemed one of the actors who was supposed to take part in that evening’s performance had indulged a little too much in the Mardi Gras festivities and as a result was sick as a dog with food poisoning, the result of having eaten a bad oyster. She was currently in the bathroom, retching loudly and frequently, and there was no way she would be able to go on.

  As Cooper tried to pour herself some coffee as quietly as possible, Andre and Juliet had discussed their options. It seemed there was no understudy for the role—which was fairly small—and no extra actors available to do the part on such short notice. Andre had been complaining loudly about the impossibility of actors when Juliet, looking at Cooper stirring milk and sugar into her mug of coffee, had said, “Hey, didn’t Annie tell me that you do spoken word stuff?”

  Cooper, not realizing what she was about to get herself into, had nodded and said that yes, she had done some performance pieces. Juliet had then looked at Andre, nodded at Cooper, and said, “I think we just found you an actor.”

  The rest was something of a blur. Cooper remembered protesting, as loudly as her headache would allow, but somehow every one of her no’s was heard as a yes by Andre. Before she’d really known what was happening, Cooper had found herself running lines with Andre, learning the part of someone called Josephine who was attending a costume party at which a man she was in love with but who was in love with someone else was also in attendance. The play was a comedy, and it was Josephine’s duty to provide some laughs by attempting to get in the way of the man she was in love with and the woman he was in love with. That’s about as much as Cooper got, which was a great deal considering that while she was learning her lines Juliet was simultaneously making her try on Josephine’s costume—a very puffy and very heavy ball gown—so that it could be altered. That was the point at which it had become abundantly clear to Cooper that the actor she was replacing was a much larger woman, and that taking over her role meant not only filling her shoes but filling her dress. This had finally been accomplished by padding Cooper’s middle with two small pillows, which were strapped around her and secured in the back.

  She had been given one opportunity to rehearse her part onstage, with Andre portraying the man Josephine loved and Juliet and Annie taking the roles of the other partygoers. Cooper had managed to remember her lines, and after running through where she was supposed to stand while saying them, her debut with the Night Vision Theater was declared by Andre to be ready for public viewing. Cooper herself was less certain, but nobody seemed particularly interested in her views on the matter, so finally she had just given up.

  Now, as she waited for her cue to enter the stage, she was convinced that it had all been a terrible idea, possibly the worst idea anyone had ever had. Yes, she’d performed onstage many times, as a singer with Schroedinger’s Cat and the Bitter Pills, and also doing her own spoken word pieces. But this was different. This time she wasn’t being herself, Cooper Rivers, she was being someone else, someone named Josephine who apparently was a little too fond of a guy who didn’t like her back. Josephine was exactly the sort of person Cooper disliked. She’d already decided that she would never be friends with someone like Josephine. However, she had agreed—however reluctantly—to do her best, and that’s what she was going to do.

  “I wonder who it is behind that peacock mask?”

  Cooper heard the line that was her cue to enter. She was the one in the peacock mask. Actually, the mask was the best part of the costume. It was made of numerous peacock feathers, all fanning out to form a fan around her face. Her dress was dark blue and purple velvet, so together with the mask the effect was quite striking.

  Cooper picked up the edge of her skirt, as Juliet had shown her how to do, and entered. She tried not to think about the audience watching her as she strode as gracefully as possible to the center of the stage, where two other actors were waiting for her. One was the man playing Oliver, her love interest. The other was a woman playing Theodora, the woman Oliver was in love with. Cooper had been instructed to be flirtatious with Oliver while giving Theodora the cold shoulder. It was Oliver who had asked the question about the person in the peacock mask.

  “Good evening,” Oliver said. “May I ask who has taken up residence behind such a lovely creation?”

  Cooper tilted her head a little to the side, trying to appear both dainty and playful. It was her turn to speak. She opened her mouth to say her line, and to her complete and total horror she realized that she had forgotten every single word.

  She stood there for a moment, looking out from behind her peacock mask at Oliver, who was wearing a mask made of white feathers, and Theodora, whose mask was made of pink and green feathers, hoping that something would come to her. But it didn’t. Try as she might, she couldn’t retrieve a single word she’d memorized earlier in the day. It was as if her brain had completely shut down, like a stubborn child sulking in its room and refusing to come down to dinner.

  The silence that had fallen over the theater was awful. No one made a sound. Cooper heard someone cough, and it sounded to her like a thunderstorm. It was as if every tiny sound was amplified a million times, so that someone shifting position in one of the velvet seats could be heard as clearly as if a brass band had suddenly struck up a march.

  It was Cooper’s worst nightmare. It was every performer’s worst nightmare. She had had nightmares like this before, dreams where she’d found herself onstage, playing before a sold-out audience, and unable to remember the lyrics to her songs. But it had never happened to her in real life. Now it was happening, and while she wished more than anything that it really was a nightmare—and that she’d wake up from it any moment and find herself safe in bed—it was all too real.

  Say something, she ordered herself. Say anything.

  She took a breath while she searched for words to say. Finally she opened her mouth. “And who might you think it is?” she asked coyly. It wasn’t even remotely like her real line, but it was okay.

  Oliver looked at her for a moment, clearly confused. But then he seemed to come to life. “Whoever you are, you are most unkind to tease us in such a way.”

  Good, Cooper thought. That wasn’t the right line, either. But she could work with it if she tried. She just had to keep going. Don’t think about the audience, she told herself. Just roll with it.

  She laughed as if Oliver had said something incredibly funny. “And who might you be?” she asked him. “From your feathers I would take you for a chicken.”

  The audience howled with laughter. Oliver, who in his white feathers and white outfit did very much resemble a chicken, took a step back. Cooper groaned inwardly. She couldn’t believe she had said he looked like a chicken.

  “Madam!” Oliver said, pretending to be offended. “You take me for a common fowl? Surely you can see that I am nothing less than a dove.”

  “And I am a hummingbird,” said Theodora, suddenly coming to life and joining the conversation.

  Cooper stood back, acting as if she’d just seen Theodora for the first time. She had to come up with something to say next. But what? Remembering the reaction the line about the chicken had gotten, she decided to keep going with that. “Hummingbird?” she cooed. “Excuse me if I say that you resemble more a Christmas goose than a hummingbird.”

  Again the audience howled. This time Cooper felt better about their reaction. The play was supposed to be a comedy. Laughter was good, even if it was the result of lines she was making up off the top of her head.

  “Me, a goose?” Theodora sai
d. She looked meaningfully at Cooper’s distended stomach. “It appears you are the one who has been stuffed.”

  Cooper shook her head, angrily ruffling her feathers. Now she was enjoying herself. Her original lines were completely forgotten as she launched herself headlong into improvisation. Back and forth she went with Theodora and Oliver, exchanging barbs and trading insults. With each new line the audience laughed more and more. Finally Cooper said to Oliver, “It is a pity that you prefer the mindless twittering of this silly bird to more refined tastes.” She then turned to Theodora and said, “As for you, I would beware. I see several cats among the guests here. If you are not careful you might find yourself becoming someone’s dinner. And now good night.”

  With that she turned and flounced offstage. As soon as she was beyond the curtains she saw Andre standing in the wings. He had a peculiar expression on his face, and immediately Cooper wished she could just disappear. She removed her peacock mask.

  “I’m really sorry,” she said. “I just totally froze out there. I don’t know what happened. It was like all my lines just—”

  “Relax,” Andre said, grinning. “You were fabulous.”

  “I was?” said Cooper doubtfully. “But I didn’t say one line the way it was written.”

  Andre shook his head. “No,” he told her. “You said them better. Cooper, that was hysterical. This is supposed to be a classic farce, and you made it even more ridiculous than it was. That line about Theodora looking like a Christmas goose was a riot.”

  “Really?” said Cooper. She still wasn’t convinced that Andre wasn’t angry at her.

  “Really,” Andre said. “In fact, I want you to go write down what you said. I’m going to leave it in the show.”